What a wonderful couple of days

Ahhh, it has been great. No stress, no arguments, just a wonderful Christmas Day with DH's parents, my two sons who are still at home and middle son and his partner and darling daughter yesterday, and a day of blissful vegging out, watching films, cuddling dogs and nibbling on leftovers and lovely little tidbits today.

Christmas Eve was a little tiring, because as usual, I had left most of the clearing up til the last minute. The hall did finally get tidied up, and looked very Victorian Christmassy with the colourful tree, quilts and candles -


My granmother knitted this Santa, oh, probably 45 years ago or thereabouts. I treasure it -

All the prezzies were finally wrapped in the evening and put by the fireplace in the drawing room

Christmas morning I started early getting the dining room ready for the Christmas meal in the afternoon. The fireplace was decorated, the table was laid, and the table centre was put together. This year I put the candelabra into a lovely old pressed glass bowl, and filled it with vintage baubles.


I love the way the candles drip down, and see the gorgeous old Santa ornaments in the bowl, aren't they just so cute? Oh, and you can probably see this here David Bailey in the baubles as well, tehehehee.

I love the muted colours of winter potpourri, and this one scented our little dining room beautifully

Our guests arrived at lunchtime, and once everybody was happily installed, we opened our presents. It was hilarious, there were many fun presents which had us all in stitches. More about the prezzies another time though. Here are just a few piccies -

Our darling Grace opening her presents
and thoroughly enjoying playing with Mummy and Daddy's stocking presents, lol, I think they have lost them to her

DH's dad was of course wearing his precious Christmas socks again. I really don't know how they have survived this long, we bought them as a silly little tree present for him about 25 years ago, and they are still going strong.

Things did a get a little silly

before we all settled down to our Christmas meal -

It was yummy. We started with a clear chicken soup, just the way my mum and my grandmother used to make it in Germany. Instead of a huge turkey, we had roast chicken and a most delicious honey and mustard coated ham with roast potatoes, roasted squash, carrots and onions. Of course there were brussels ( which we all love ), creamed parsnips, honey glazed carrots, a white onion and parsley sauce for the ham and gravy for the chicken. We did manage a bit of Christmas pud for dessert, but left the cheese and biscuits for much much later.

We really had a most relaxing day and the hours just flew by. Nanny and Popeye left about 9pm, and we realised then how pooped we were. Didn't stay up much later than that, lol, we all went to bed quite early. Such lightweights, lol.

And today, well today was a day for just vegging, nibbling, watching a few films and just spending some happy time together. I love Christmas. And I sincerely hope that all of you had as good a time as we had. I am still full of Christmas joy, lol, and could smile at and hug everybody, so watch out!!! xxxxx