HAPPY Christmas

The family have left and now the kids are roaming around trying to figure out how their various presents work. I fell asleep on the couch with a chicken puppet on my hand while Wren spoke to the chicken. Somewhere in the distance Frost said something about desert and then they went away.

Holidays are lovely but damn, they are hard work. There's all that wrapping, anticipation, planning, cooking, sharing, rushing around, eating, eating and you forget to take a picture. Then there's the crumbling and squashing of packaging to try and get it in the bin.

I feel very lucky.

The table looked fabulous, it really did. We made our own centerpiece from greens and holly in the neighborhood. The leg of lamb was slightly underdone despite people arriving for dinner later than expected. I wish I had a picture.

Joshua has offered to photoshop a pretend one for me.

All day Frost has nagged me about saying "Happy" Christmas instead of "Merry Christmas". I told him its what we do in South Africa. He is not sure, yet. I made Christmas pudding, brandy butter and we lit the pud. It felt good to share traditions from my own Christmas's past and to have Frost explain them to everyone. There was some concern about the quarters in the pudding. Couldn't we choke?

All have survived and we look forward to catching up again soon and to exploring all our presents. I missed my nap ;) Wren did too. Its early to bed.

Frost tells me "chicken likes chewing on evil pirates" so I better go since Wren is upset.