Joyeux Noel

Christmas Eve. All that anticipation in the air. An early morning rise with atmospheric country roads all to myself to help Mum grab the food order in town, bag a couple of forgotten (oops) presents and be home by 9am, leaving the building crowds and unfolding spending frenzy far behind.

Dave's first Christmas Eve off in many, many years, spent sleeping off the late night gaming session of the night before, ach, who am I kidding, every night is a late night gaming session for Dave. But we did manage a Christmas Eve visit to a very quiet, windy and cold beach, jack frost biting our fingers.

And in the evening a change to the usual running order with a visit out to the Halls for a gathering with some of Dave's family, a secret Santa present exchange and lovely food (veggie stuffing in veggie broth? Why didn't I know about this wonderful combo before?). Carolyn had put together a dance charades game that had us all in stitches. We had one minute each to act out as much dances on the cards to your team to win. Boys versus girls. I will never be rid of the image of Steve doing a Brazilian dance that I can't remember the name of now...but it was a glorious Breakdancing floor judo move in his PJs that had us all creasing ourselves laughing. In amongst hula hooping and disco dancing my cards also included twerking and lap dancing - try doing that sober and tastefully in front of your kids - think Dame Maggie Smith dancing to Beyoncé - it worked, they guessed them straight away and helped the girls secure victory. Honourable mention for Sam who had to act out sports and thanks to his Granda's sporting genes won the most individual points.

Midnight arrived and as designated driver I took the executive decision to gather my merry husband and tired kids and get them home because......Santa was on his wayyyyyyy!

Back at home with two happy hounds, I gave the kids and Dave their now traditional Christmas Eve pjs (the forgotten presents of the early morning town raid) and while they are both teenagers and in the know, Sam was very keen to put the carrot out for Rudolph, pop the mince pie out and burn the Santa letters up the chimney (so late with the Santa letters this year....I mean, he was already in the air, would it be enough time for Santa to get them, read them, whip up the right presents and then send them magically back to us on Christmas morning without a hint of ash or coal and a wee message on the back from him???...only the morning would tell...)