Another Christmas Day...

Suprisingly gentle start to the day, although I later discovered that although pater had got up early to put the turkey in the oven, he'd failed to actually set the temperature so the thing wasn't actually cooking for its first half hour!

My sister and all her children arrived at half-past twelve, fresh from opening presents at home and with only an hour or so before the two oldest were due at the Oak in Baginton for lunch with the other half of their family.

My nephew stands in front of the tree watching while someone else opens a present; my sister seems pretty into proceedings too!

( A opening of presents... )

The slightly frenzied opening ceremony was rather more successful than last year, when someone smashed a bottle of red wine on the cream coloured carpet, but mater was not best pleased to be given a thermal cooker — apparently she & pater had already discussed it and she'd categorically refused to have one, only for pater, in an entirely characteristic move, to buy one anyway. In a similar move my parents gave me a guide to identifying birds even though I'd repeatedly stressed that I didn't want them to even think about buying me anything, so for all her complaints my mum wasn't exactly able to take the moral high ground.

( Yet more presents! )

After smoothing over another incipient flare up over whether the turkey was cooked — no a subject which greatly bothered me! — we settled down to a late Christmas lunch.

( The family prepare for lunch... )

With the uncle having been ill & the mater disinclined to go into Coventry, it was a less extreme event than usual and I was spared the endless canapés that, despite repeated attempts, I've never been able to convince the others that I don't really like — obviously it's nice that they want to make a special effort for me, but it's unfortunate that their idea of what I might like doesn't match with my actual preferences!

( Time to eat at last! )

With the afternoon pretty much gone by the end of lunch, my sister and her lot collected their remaining bits and pieces and went home, leaving pater and my uncle to sleep things.



Rather than put our feet up, Mater and I went for a short walk in the park to recover. Before lunch the sky had looked distinctly ominous, with dark clouds chasing out the blue skies.

I slipped out into the garden just before lunch and caught the sky just as it was starting to change for the worse. But the clouds didn't seem to do much for the temperature and by the time we went out for our walk it was beginning to get seriously cold.

When we got back, we fitted in some late cups of tea, I had some toast, put my laundry on, and that was the day done for another year.