Christmas & Boxing Day

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas. Here's a few photos from mine.

Father Christmas has been! Mum and Dad come round to watch us open our presents so I give them a ring and Chickpea opens the presents from her stocking in my bed while we wait for them to arrive. Then it's downstairs to open those under the tree.

As always she has quite a pile to open - these are all hers! Father Christmas was kind to me too :-)

After present opening, it's time for breakfast and I'd provided a selection of danish pastries and croissants. Mum and Dad leave to prepare Christmas dinner and to open presents with my brother. We follow a couple of hours later.

Cheers! Christmas dinner at 1.30 at Mum and Dad's. As almost every year, there are 5 of us for dinner: me and Chickpea, Mum and Dad, and my brother.

Turkey, stuffing, chipolatas, roast potatoes, carrots and broccoli, gravy and cranberry sauce. Crackers pulled and bad jokes told!

Me and Chickpea dance to Christmas songs while waiting for Christmas pudding to arrive. Well, except for Chickpea - she hates Christmas pudding so just has a dish of white sauce!

Later, we go next door to wish Mary and her family a merry Christmas before sitting down to watch TV. We usually play our favourite board game, Cluedo, but I think we were too exhausted this year.

About 9pm we said our goodbyes and walked home. Another lovely and familiar Christmas Day comes to a close.

Boxing Day morning arrives and, yes, I was one of the crazy people who was at the Next sale at 6am. I bought mostly house items and accessories this year. The rest of the sales will wait until tomorrow when we go into Manchester for our other Christmas ritual: theatre at the Royal Exchange.

Later in the morning I visited those who are no longer with us. We would always visit Nanna and Grandad and Auntie Lilian on Boxing Day so I've kept up the tradition.

By special request, baking cookies to take to Ben's (Chickpea's boyfriend) house. I also fitted in a bit of knitting and browsing through my new cooking and craft books.

Later, a buffet at Mum and Dad's and watching the Tim Burton version of 'Alice in Wonderland' on TV (not sure I was that impressed).

And last but not least...this wasn't on Christmas Day or Boxing Day - it was yesterday - but I couldn't resist showing you Toby, Ben's dog. Isn't he gorgeous? We were invited to their house for hotpot so spent the afternoon and evening with Ben and his parents - I think this is the start of a new tradition :-)

And so we close where we started, hoping that you had a lovely Christmas and enjoyed both old and new traditions with your friends and family.