A Christmas Message

I thought Top Gun looked very statesmanlike in front of the tree this morning. Ready to address his subjects as it were.

decent lie in this morning; after presents we had a rather stonker brunch of eggs, muffins, crumpets, cheese and (in the boy's case) smoked salmon.

Facetimed the Girl Racer who had started work at 5am over in Canada. Lovely to see her again although she is sorely missed at this time of year.

Our day has been bloody lovely - for once cooking the Christmas meal didn't feel like organised chaos, and we pottered through the afternoon getting it ready.

The boys had turkey and all the trimmings. We did a nut roast and a mushroom and haloumi pie. Dad's traditional home made yule log is also in the fridge and ready to be eaten. One nice little touch was celebrating the first day of Hanukkah by making our own bread sauce using the last of the Challah from last week ... very nice it was too. Can't remember this ever coinciding exactly with Christmas.

The highlight of the day was the whole family doing a drunken rendition of The Pogues' Fairytale of New York, reading the lyrics off of various iPads and iPhones. 

Been a really great one. Looking forward to being a bit more chilled now that all the serious shopping and eating is out of the way ... 

The Boys of the NYPD Choir still singing "Galway Bay"
And the Bells Were Ringing Out for Christmas Day

Merry Christmas everyone.