Our Christmas – Mummascribbles

To put it quite simply, this Christmas has been amazing. I couldn’t have dreamed for a better one if I’m honest, every second so far has been incredible and I still have another week before it’s back to work time. So, here’s a little look at what happened after I broke up for the holidays.

On the Tuesday of Christmas week, we went to visit my Dad’s burial site. Until now, Zach has been too small to understand why we actually go there but this time I thought it was important and so my Dad is now known as Grandad in the Woods. If you’ve seen my previous post about the burial site you’ll know it’s pure woodland and the most wonderful place to not only visit for us but an equally wonderful place for a toddler to explore. Christmas is a hard time to not have such a close family member around but it’s hard to be sad in a place like this – you can see that from these pictures!

On such a cold day, it was only right that we went for a nice big lunch at the nearby harvester. Note that Zach didn’t eat all of that ice cream by himself!

On Christmas eve it was a quiet one. Other than me going to pick the turkey up, we had no plans. I wanted to make gingerbread men with Zach to leave out for Santa and there was wrapping to be done but that was about it. That was of course until half way through the making of gingerbread, I decided that I’d better check that the turkey fitted in our roasting tray…it didn’t! Cue me going on a mad dash to find a bigger one. Tesco’s had been ransacked, literally nothing left on their shelves related to turkey cooking but my luck was in at M&S who had the very last one that my turkey would fit in. I held onto it like the people in the shops on Black Friday, for fear of someone taking it from me, while I phoned the other half to check the size. All was well and I returned home to complete the rather shoddy job of baking with over-chilled dough and a child who was more interested in his dinner! We did have some fun though although the little men (and stars) decided to merge together in the oven!

After dinner Zach had a bath and then we got everything ready for Santa. We put down a glass of milk, carrot and gingerbread man, left out his stocking and hung the magic key outside.

Once he was tucked up in bed, there was a 3 hour wrapping session for the other half and I!!

So, Christmas morning came and all the build up with Zach was totally worth it. He was so excited when we went downstairs and he saw that Santa had been, left his presents (the stocking ones!), returned his key and left him a thank you note. Unfortunately, mummy had spoiled him a bit and he got well and truly bored of opening presents! He stopped and asked for his breakfast giving me time to put the turkey in, resumed then stopped again and I had to bribe him to open the rest! In the end, he had a bit of help but he is only 2 – it’s expected.

Once I was all dressed, all eyes were on the dinner. Just as I was starting panic as it reached the crucial stage, the in-law’s arrived enabling the other half to peel some spuds! Then I stole the mother in law to assist. I won’t lie, it was a bigger task than I had anticipated. Cooking for 6 adults and 3 children when all the food won’t fit in the oven at the same time and when the turkey takes an extra half hour longer than it said it would – I was stressed. Somehow though, I managed to cook up a feast and it went down a treat. I was really proud of myself and rewarded myself with a fair amount of bubbly for the rest of the day!

After dinner, we had a mad half hour of present opening, presents flying everywhere, no-one knowing who’d got what and from who, but it was fun chaos. There’s nothing like seeing three excited children all in one room! It wasn’t long after dessert that my family turned up laden down with even more presents and Zach had an extra big cousin to play with!

Dean’s family then left a couple of hours after, we finally got a very exhausted Zach to bed at 9pm (he totally missed his lunchtime nap), and the evening was spent with my little lot, drinking, eating and playing a game called Linky. It’s really fun and we all got a bit competitive! Not long after midnight we finished our final game and they made their way home, leaving us to get straight to bed and straight to sleep!

Boxing day was a partially chilled out affair. We got most of his new toys out and had a good play and then we headed on over to the other half’s brother’s place for dinner and to drop all the stuff off they couldn’t fit in their car the night before! It was another lovely time had and another day that Zach got to see his cousins!

Saturday was another cousin day as we went over to the in-law’s for cold meat and chips, followed by more party food! It’s lovely that Zach got to spend so much time with them as we don’t get to see them too often but then it wasn’t without arguments over toys and other such stuff!! I do love this picture of my boys chillaxing for a moment!

And so we are on Sunday evening and the little man is unwell. I guess it was inevitable that he would pick up a Christmas bug and I’m glad it’s come after the main event but he’s got a bit of a nasty cough and cold. Last time he was poorly though, I wrote this blog post and was in emotional turmoil over it all. Tonight, I am pleased to report that it is all so very different. For tonight, as we were having an after bath cuddle while he was still wrapped in his towel, he fell asleep, snuggled into me. I had to promise him more mummy cuddles to get him in his pj’s and upstairs and once again, he fell asleep on me before I put him in his cot when he declared mummy stay. Honestly, I could have cried. One of my main objectives of these two weeks was to gather back some of that need he used to have for me and I really feel like that’s been achieved with a week still to go of me being at home. I felt wonderful tonight when my boy needed his mummy.

That was my best Christmas present! With this bag coming a close second!!

Tomorrow we are off to Holland on Sea to visit some of my family who we haven’t seen since Zach was much smaller. Keeping fingers crossed for good driving conditions, a car journey nap (for Zach, not me!) and an afternoon of more fun!

So that’s our Christmas 2014 and what a wonderful one it was.

Did you have a fab one too? What were your highlights? I’d love to hear some of your festive tales 🙂