We had a spiffing Christmas Day!
For once Charles had had enough sleep and was in a really jovial mood. He was awake before me!
I put on my most comfortable "best" clothes and went down to make smoothies and warm croissants while Charles made the coffee. After breakfast we all sat at the kitchen table and prepared the vegetables. I'd bought pre-prepared sprouts for once, so they just needed halving and blanching. We prepared the parsnips and carrots for parrots and I peeled the spuds while John cut them up. I think this is the very first time anyone has insisted that he help with the vegetables and it was Charles who said he should do so. I think he was a bit taken aback. Giggle!
We took our shampagne and coffee into the sitting-room, put the tree lights on and had our presents, interrupted only by the necessity of moving the vase of flowers to another room where Morgan couldn't push them off the chest of drawers in an effort to drink the flower water again!
I'd wrapped the camera, camera case and media card and put them all in a Christmas bag, so I gave them to Charles last of all. He was sooooo pleased with the camera, and so was I. It's got an incredible spec for the unbelievably cheap price I got it for. It even has a little built in memory so that you can take 10 photos with no media card at all, which is more than mine would do. It's also got instant access by buttons to various functions that I have to access laboriously through the menu, and it's really tiny enough to carry in a pocket!. I WANT ONE!
He spent all day photographing cats, the views from the attic windows and Christmas!!!. I have hopes that he may start going out for little walks just to take photos. He got a pedometer in his cracker, so maybe that was some sort of sign! I'm hoping that since I bought him the camera with the ostensible reason being that he's supposed to be going on a course in the New Year, he may actually go to the course instead of changing his mind at the last minute as he often does.
We all got lots of nice things. Among other things I got a Maddy Prior CD that I hadn't heard of before, a lovely stainless steel vacuum flask cafetiere and a lovely pair of gold earrings, which John had bought from one of the Asian jewellery shops, Apparently he was charged by the weight of the gold!!
Sadly, it appears that the holes in my ears have closed in the few weeks that I haven't had any everyday earrings, so I may have to get them re-pierced, unless I can get them in a little while before I start drinking again! I can't really believe that they can have closed up after all these years. It must be over 40 years since I had them done.
Our lovely next-door Asian neighbours had assembled a little Christmas hamper for us with a jar of mixed nuts, chocolates, shortbread and something else I can't remember at the moment. I was very touched and I nearly went round with some mince pies, but I fortunately remembered that they have brandy in them. I've decided to go out tomorrow and buy some vegetarian mince-meat and bake a batch just for them on Saturday that I can take round on Sunday for New Year.
Charles had several pairs of socks, which he wanted, but he was so particularly struck by the two pairs of Snoopy socks I bought him that he changed into them!
We had our dinner at about 5.30, a little later than I meant to, but not too bad, and we had a really nice bottle of wine we had left over from last year, when it was given us as a present. It was very good! The goose was lovely and we've only eaten half of it, even having as much as we greedily wanted. Charles' home-made stuffing was really very good and there's only a little of it left to be squabbled over today. Unbelievably, there were goose-fat roast potatoes left over, but Charles manfully ate them because they're so delicious and they can never be satisfactorily warmed up. The sprouts with chestnuts and bacon were good, but we all agreed that the chestnuts did nothing for the sprouts and will think of something else for next year.
No-one had any room for Christmas pudding, or even a tiny mince pie, although Charles and I had a small bowl of lemon mousse at 9.00 pm.
We finished dinner and retired to the sitting-room just in time to watch Dr Who. And no-one got indigestion. That's what I call a result!
I phoned my Sis before we had dinner and they had all had a really nice day, too.
It was really a very happy relaxed Christmas Day, one of the best I can remember in recent years, although, of course, the very best ones were when Charles was small.
I hope that all my friends had as happy a Christmas as we did.
For once Charles had had enough sleep and was in a really jovial mood. He was awake before me!
I put on my most comfortable "best" clothes and went down to make smoothies and warm croissants while Charles made the coffee. After breakfast we all sat at the kitchen table and prepared the vegetables. I'd bought pre-prepared sprouts for once, so they just needed halving and blanching. We prepared the parsnips and carrots for parrots and I peeled the spuds while John cut them up. I think this is the very first time anyone has insisted that he help with the vegetables and it was Charles who said he should do so. I think he was a bit taken aback. Giggle!
We took our shampagne and coffee into the sitting-room, put the tree lights on and had our presents, interrupted only by the necessity of moving the vase of flowers to another room where Morgan couldn't push them off the chest of drawers in an effort to drink the flower water again!
I'd wrapped the camera, camera case and media card and put them all in a Christmas bag, so I gave them to Charles last of all. He was sooooo pleased with the camera, and so was I. It's got an incredible spec for the unbelievably cheap price I got it for. It even has a little built in memory so that you can take 10 photos with no media card at all, which is more than mine would do. It's also got instant access by buttons to various functions that I have to access laboriously through the menu, and it's really tiny enough to carry in a pocket!. I WANT ONE!
He spent all day photographing cats, the views from the attic windows and Christmas!!!. I have hopes that he may start going out for little walks just to take photos. He got a pedometer in his cracker, so maybe that was some sort of sign! I'm hoping that since I bought him the camera with the ostensible reason being that he's supposed to be going on a course in the New Year, he may actually go to the course instead of changing his mind at the last minute as he often does.
We all got lots of nice things. Among other things I got a Maddy Prior CD that I hadn't heard of before, a lovely stainless steel vacuum flask cafetiere and a lovely pair of gold earrings, which John had bought from one of the Asian jewellery shops, Apparently he was charged by the weight of the gold!!
Sadly, it appears that the holes in my ears have closed in the few weeks that I haven't had any everyday earrings, so I may have to get them re-pierced, unless I can get them in a little while before I start drinking again! I can't really believe that they can have closed up after all these years. It must be over 40 years since I had them done.
Our lovely next-door Asian neighbours had assembled a little Christmas hamper for us with a jar of mixed nuts, chocolates, shortbread and something else I can't remember at the moment. I was very touched and I nearly went round with some mince pies, but I fortunately remembered that they have brandy in them. I've decided to go out tomorrow and buy some vegetarian mince-meat and bake a batch just for them on Saturday that I can take round on Sunday for New Year.
Charles had several pairs of socks, which he wanted, but he was so particularly struck by the two pairs of Snoopy socks I bought him that he changed into them!
We had our dinner at about 5.30, a little later than I meant to, but not too bad, and we had a really nice bottle of wine we had left over from last year, when it was given us as a present. It was very good! The goose was lovely and we've only eaten half of it, even having as much as we greedily wanted. Charles' home-made stuffing was really very good and there's only a little of it left to be squabbled over today. Unbelievably, there were goose-fat roast potatoes left over, but Charles manfully ate them because they're so delicious and they can never be satisfactorily warmed up. The sprouts with chestnuts and bacon were good, but we all agreed that the chestnuts did nothing for the sprouts and will think of something else for next year.
No-one had any room for Christmas pudding, or even a tiny mince pie, although Charles and I had a small bowl of lemon mousse at 9.00 pm.
We finished dinner and retired to the sitting-room just in time to watch Dr Who. And no-one got indigestion. That's what I call a result!
I phoned my Sis before we had dinner and they had all had a really nice day, too.
It was really a very happy relaxed Christmas Day, one of the best I can remember in recent years, although, of course, the very best ones were when Charles was small.
I hope that all my friends had as happy a Christmas as we did.