This can be a tough time of year, with the expectations it brings of happiness, gifts, and time with family. These are things that not everyone can enjoy, as I have been reminded over the last week in trawling the blogs of my blogging friends. So, whatever Christmas looked like for you this year, I hope it was at least safe and warm, physically and spiritually.
We had a lazy Christmas day. We prepared the turkey the evening before and set the oven timer. This has become one of the things that marks Christmas day for me, now, waking up to the aroma of cooking percolating through the house.
Santa Claus visited during the night, and the kids woke us up just before 7am.
We have Ali's parents visiting from Bristol, and they are in no hurry in the mornings so it was mid-morning before everyone was breakfasted, dressed, and ready to sit down and exchange gifts. There were phone calls to family the other side of the Atlantic, and, in between times, Ali and I pottered in the kitchen preparing dinner. Because it was all so spread out, it was not rushed and didn't feel like a lot of work. We served up turkey, sausages, mashed and roast potatoes, and assorted vegetables.
The rest of the day was an unstructured meandering of movies and grazing on leftovers. Because everyone was happy to be left to their own devices, it was a relaxed and undemanding afternoon and evening, which suits me just fine.
So, please tell, how was it for you?
On a different subject, you may notice that I've now added links between the header and the posts. I wanted a separate page to describe my work in progress, which I'll update from time to time as things change. That is the "Words and pictures" link - I buried a few painting in there amongst the descriptions of novels.
I don't know if those page posts show up in the blogger dashboard. If they do, I apologise for the flood of edits. It took me a few tries to get it right. I also had to tinker a lot with the appearance of the links above, and in the end resorted to creating them manually because I couldn't get them to show up properly using the standard template tools. Oh well, it was a learning experience.
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7 comments:
Hi Ian,
Apologies for a bit of a late response to your Christmas posting.
Your Christmas Day sounded like quite the pleasant and relaxing time. I'm really happy to know this.
I had a very quiet and peaceful Christmas, thank you. Not stressful but the rubbish on television, here....well, yuck:-)
Take very good care.
Kind wishes, Gary.
Hello Ian,
My Christmas was lovely... just David and me and our two grown sons. I had cooked and baked many things on Friday, so on Christmas Day we had sticky buns for breakfast and then ham and all the fixings for Christmas dinner. Between breakfast and dinner we exchanged gifts. David and I bought one another token gifts and we plan to get what we need during post Christmas sales. We got the boys a moderate amount of gifts-- mostly clothes.
I read some staggering statistics about the amount of paper we use in a typical Christmas season, and to that end I am proud to say we had a paperless Christmas. Everything was wrapped in fabric bags I had sewed last year and then tied with satin ribbon. When all the gifts were unwrapped, it was a matter of putting the ribbons inside the bags, folding them, and putting them back in a drawer for the next time. I plan to have every Christmas be paperless from now on.
In the afternoon, my older son and I played Scrabble and my younger son and David watched a film online. Later our sons went to a movie together, and David and I had a quiet few hours. (I forget how I like to see my sons come, and also to see them go to their own domains when they're ready.)
Thanks for your question on Christmas... sounds like you had a relaxed and fun time.
No worries on the blogger dashboard... they didn't show up in mine.
Thanks, Ian.
Saloma
Hello Gary, I don't know if British TV has changed much in the last 6 years, but we have trouble tolerating the rubbish this side of the Atlantic. So I think it is a universal affliction :D Glad you had a peaceful day, I read the fuller account on your blog.
Saloma, that sounds like a wonderful day. Your paperless Christmas puts me to shame. We had lots of little gifts to wrap for the children. We recycle all the paper of course (most of our trash gets recycled in one way or another) but we have yet to graduate to re-using our wrapping. I think we are reaching the stage where the enthusiastic unwrapping will leave enough useable pieces. Going paperless might be a bit of a stretch just yet, but good for you!
Sounds like you had a wonderful Christmas, Ian!
Mine was spent visiting my sister-in-law and being attacked by our various nieces and nephews who saw the loads of wrapped gifts we were bring in from the car. LOL!
But it was a great time we had, made the more so since it was not at our house. I don't mind visiting others for the holidays, so long as I have a nice peaceful house to return to at the end of the long day.
Sounds like you had fun there, David. That sounds similar to the family gatherings I remember as a child, but I know what you mean about having a peaceful haven to return to.
My Christmas sounds much the same as yours. Family, food, grazing on food, kids opening presents, fudge and cookies, and chatting with extended family. All in all it was pretty relaxing. :)
I checked out your WIPs, looks like you're keeping yourself busy with several projects. Go you!
Hi Jean, to be honest, only one of those projects is likely to be on the go at any one time. Right now I barely have time to steer bits of Ghosts through the CC queue, what with all the feedback to process, not to mention doing my best to return critiques.
I'll make a note to make that clearer next time I edit that page. I'm still feeling my way with it, it's a new addition to the blog.
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