Lights Out....

We - he - he -ll !

Our three day party is over for another year - pppphhheeew!!

Nah, seriously it was all good, all fun!

Christmas Eve:
Day - was spent getting up at 6am to take Z17 to work by 7.15am.
Deciding to go into 'town' (the city) to Target to buy some clothes for Small Man (as one does Xmas Eve).
Feeling decidedly pleased with oneself for arriving 30 minutes before the store opened and getting a parking space 100 metres from the door (my knid of parking!).
Buying 3 x pairs of shorts, a belt and t-shirt. At 30% off - even better!
Driving out to the 'burbs to get essential supermarket items for Xmas day.
Arrive home at 9.30am to unload groceries, scull a quick milo then be out the door again at 10am.
Be chauffer driven (by the Big A) to the city again to test drive a Celica for Z17 - we had been past and had a look at it and it looked o.k. - under his price range so enough $$ left to tidy up a few dents etc
Come to the conclusion that Celica should be painted yellow as it was THE BIGGEST LEMON I'VE EVER BEEN IN!!
Canned the whole thing.
Went to the seafood shop and purchased prawns and scallops for Xmas day lunch.
Went to fruit and veg shop
Went to another supermarket to purchase items sold out at previous supermarket (choc ripple biscuits etc)
Went to bakery
Came home and unloaded again
Stewed apples for apple crumble
Made ripple cake (yes, another one...grrr!)
Collected Z17 from work

Night: Went to mums for Xmas Eve bbq tea.
Had a lovely night with Mum and SF (he's fine if you ignore him - ha ha!), my brother and his little girl, SF's sister, husband and 26 year old son who is home from Korea for a while (he's been over there teaching English and all sorts).
Ate lots of salad and some nice marinated chicken.
I skipped dessert (trifle - ha ha! I've seen enough trifle for a while too)
No presents involved, except for the kids who received their from Mum and SF
Finally made it home close to midnight
Boys went to bed while Big A & I wrapped all of the presents a few last minute things (I wrapped while he wrote on cards)
Finally in bed at around 1.30am

Christmas Day:
8.30am Small Man wakes us up :)
He opens his card and the few little things I had wrapped for him (they each received money from us this year) - no point waiting for Z17 to get up he'd be waiting a while
We go back to sleep for an hour or so
Get up again and start preparing for the day
Z17 finally surfaces, opens his stuff, watches me open my present, then goes back to bed
Big A zooms around with the dyson for 15 minutes while I tidy up
Big A puts together our scallop and prawn kebabs ready for the bbq - they were awesome!
I headed out to collect my brother and niece in the afternoon while Big A went to collect PB and his kids

We sat out the back for a while and had a few drinks (actually they had a LOT of drinks, I had one - ha ha!) preparing dinner in between
6.30pm and dinner is finally ready, except for - now wait for it - I F*#KED THE SPUDS - how on earth do you bugger up roast spuds?
I always pre-cook them in boiling water for just under 10 minutes then add them to the pan with the meat - I did this (as I have done for years and years) and I'll be stuffed if they weren't all mushy - so half of them were ruined - OMG!!! On Xmas Day!!!!!
So anyway we all survived that, the ones that weren't mushy cooked up fine and went down well
The turkey buffe and rump roast were magnificent
We had home grown broad beans and sweet corn etc etc

Mum had a whole pavlova left over from Xmas Eve, so I thought stuff making apple crumble, we'll have pav and ripple cake
Mum had trouble with the eggs when making the pav - now this is the woman that's made hundreds of perfect pavlovas - it wasn't whipping up properly so she added extra sugar - it was a bit too sugary in the end - so we had a disaster each.....

The night was lots of fun with Big A and PB having rather a lot to drink, and then trying to ski jump on wii fit - hmmm!
No presents involved except for the kids - we decided a few years ago to only buy for the kids - it's takes sooooo much stress out of the day for all of us - it's great!

We eventually finished up at 2am or something ridiculous!

Boxing Day:
We are woken at 6.30am by Small Man who had a frog in his bedroom (courtesy of George I'm sure)
We went back to sleep and were woken again at 9.30am by SF's brother in law to say we should go to their house for lunch today rather than to the river for a bbq
Boys decide they aren't coming with us (Small Man had reached his limit, Z17 stayed at home to keep him company)
We had a nice lunch with them, some beautiful salmon on the bbq and lots of salad for me
I had to pass on dessert because it was a: Christmas Pudding (full of almonds) b:........wait for it.....Chocolate Ripple Cake - ha ha ha!!!
I got to catch up with my brothers ex (my nieces Mum) who I still get on with really well - she was there to collect the little one from Mum (she stayed with Mum Christmas night because my brother had to work today)
We had to leave at 2.30pm to be home in time to get Z17 to work from 4pm til midnight (which is why I'm still up now!)
Big A also is working night shift tonight - so needed to get ready.

What a few days!
It's all been lovely, but tiring.
Next year I'll pace myself a lot better.
It didn't help that I was still buggered from the week before (started walking into door frames and stuff I was so worn out)......but I did enjoy myself.
Christmas isn't quite the same now that the boys have grown up,
but it was nice to spend those few days with family/extended family/ring in's/friends!!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

G
xx