ailbhe | Christmas Day, Hurray hurray (Reply)

All times are best-guess-after-the-fact.

09:00: I think we woke about then. We woke, had teas and coffees, and then the three of us (Niamh, Rob and Me) opened our stockings! We have some lovely stockings; Niamh and I have red ones with Teddy Bear heads, which we got when we were about ten and eight years old. Rob's is one of the seven my mother made for my new house, now that I have my own house and my own Christmases. They wre good stockings - and SantaRob had bought too many gifts for me, so a lot of my under-the-tree gifts were piled as Santa gifts. I got a great set of screwdrivers, many pairs of fun cotton knickers and striped socks (Santa always brings knickers and socks to my mother's daughters). I also got a candle, and, um, lots of other stuff. Oh - a miner's light on a headband, so that I can read my book while walking home from work in the dark. Rob got a model of a battleship, and Niamh got, um, knickers and socks and things. Everyone got fingerpuppets.

10:00: Breakfast, ish. Kellogg's Variety Pack - Niamh ate the Corn Pops, which astonished me, as I had always assumed that they were sweetened packing material and not intended for human consumption. This was followed by bathing, dressing, and preparation. The turkey went into the oven, which refused to reach the desired temperature. We moved the presents under the tree so that they all more or less fit in one end of the room, and hid the pile with armchairs. It was a big pile.

11:00: We received confirmation that Rob's parents would be the expected hour late, and Rob more or less finished peeling potatoes for the day. We washed up again, and I found the tablecloth and put it somewhere I could reach.

12:00: Janice and her parents came around, after I sent Rob over to help them carry the dining chairs. I can't seat 9 people around my dining table on the chairs I own. Sheila got very excited about the her stocking, which she and Ken shared (parents get a shared stocking because 7 stockings is a lot to prepare). There were many exclamations and "Oh, my! Oh, my!".

13:00: Rob's parents arrived. They had a large red Santa sack full of gifts, and then went back out to the car to get more gifts and Anna, his sister. The gifts didn't fi tunder the tre euntil we moved furniture again. I still don't know who insisted on putting the sackful under the tree; it was tidier in the sack.

14:00-16:00: Feeding time at the zoo. We managed to fit most of the food on the table and one side table, but the sausage stuffing wouldn't fit anywhere and we had to leave a lot of gravy in the kitchen "for later". The melon was hugely appreciated, as was the turkey (both juicier and more flavourful than usual, apparently), and when you invite 7 people over for food, lay in some wine - someone will bring a little, and then all the people who said they didn't want any will change their minds, and there won't be enough.

There was too much of everything else, though. And the roast potatoes were great. The ham was a little salty.

16:00-18:00: Presents! Now, after dinner, we are allowed to open the presents under the tree, which are Not From Santa. This went on for hours, and was a bit embarrassing because Janice's family didn't get an awful lot. But many fabulous gifts were given and received, of which more later.

18:00-19:30: Trifle (everyone had two helpings), biscuits, mince pies, cheese, tea, coffee, chocolate, and "Ooh, I'm so hot and full and tired and tired."

Everyone went home pretty early, then Niamh and Rob and I watched a DVD and crawled into bed. The cats were either out or upstairs most of the day - too many people.