A Second Christmas Dinner!

To be fair to my niece, she was incredibly good last night after the disappointment of finding no one awake to play with, and although she wasn’t ready to settle straight down to sleep she sat quietly with her mum and dad while beds were blown up and everything brought in from their car. I didn’t hear anything from any of them once I was upstairs in bed, and I hope this meant that they slept well and didn’t get too cold on the hard wood floor.

By the time I wake up this morning, there are giggles coming from the younger two girls’ bedroom and it’s obvious that the cousins have met up and are playing happily together. I hadn’t let on that our visitors were arriving last night, although they did know they were seeing them today, and I hope it was a nice surprise for them. I don’t have to wait for long for the answer to that one as three bouncy girls arrive in our room- with a full explanation of the game they’re playing!

Knowing that we will have a very busy day with so many people in the house, Mike and I take our early morning drinks upstairs and grab a sneaky few minutes longer in bed. By now the girls have taken their game downstairs and I can hear them bossing my poor sister-in-law around. We didn’t really have much chance for a chat with our visitors last night, as by the time everything was set up for the night it was getting rather late and everyone was tired. So we head off downstairs, while the girls head back up, and all sit around in our pyjamas having a good old catch up and another cuppa.

We didn’t get to see each other at all over the holidays, and so my brother had suggested cooking and sharing a Christmas dinner type meal together today. He and my sister-in-law went shopping at home and found a lovely looking joint of gammon, which they have brought together with a contribution to the veg, the ingredients for his red cabbage speciality, and most importantly… a nice bottle of Rose wine!

After a nice lazy morning, my brother and Mike head off to Morrison’s for the rest of the veg. and something quick for lunch while I start the gammon cooking. I also take the chance to pop a load of the ‘weekend’ washing in to wash, as I’m sure I won’t think much about it for the rest of the day! When the men return, they are loaded down with goodies and I set about sorting out where everything will fit in the oven, and which saucepans to use!

We then spend the next two or three hours with us adults all in the kitchen, enjoying preparing dinner together- complete with compulsory (slightly stronger) drinks and chatting, while the children are busy playing yet more giggly games together. The time passes very pleasantly with everyone chipping in, and helping out and soon it’s time to sit down to our second Christmas dinner.

Our eldest daughter is feeling a bit brighter today, and she’s come downstairs to share in the meal, which is good as she needs to build her strength back up if she’s going to return to work on Monday as she plans to. It also would have felt incredibly wrong not to have her at the table with us. There’s a real happy and festive feeling around the table- it’s about quarter past four when we dish up so it’s still light outside in the absence of Christmas lights, but we’ve got Christmas crackers and the younger children seem to find the jokes funny, even if we’ve heard them all before! It’s a lovely meal, even though we all eat too much, and I’m really glad we managed to find this time to spend together.

The plan is to pop to the local pub early this evening if anyone wants dessert- no one has any room left just yet anyway, and it’s a good excuse for a drink and a game of pool. In the meantime the children head off to the living room to play our son’s Wii U, which stops the younger girls running around too much after eating. Washing up may not be the most exciting pastime, but with everyone involved once again it’s a nice chance for more chatting, and everything is soon clean and put away.

By half past seven most people have the space, and the desire, for pudding so we set off for the two minute walk to the pub. Desserts and drinks ordered we spend the next hour all together, with a few games of pool thrown in, before the children head back off home under strict instructions not to disturb our eldest daughter who had settled down for the night before we left. An hour later and we adults also head home at the end of what has been a very enjoyable day.

Tomorrow our visitors will be leaving for a drive around the moors, before heading back to London. And I am going to have to do a lot of catching up- with admin and my blog, which is now nearly a week behind. It may now take a little longer to achieve my goal of creating an up to date and informative blog for my website, but we’ve had a lovely weekend catching up with a part of the family we see all too rarely these days, and nothing can compete with that.