Last night I stitched all of our names onto a Big Santa sack because we haven't found the box yet that has our Christmas stockings in. We sat there and played scrabble, drinking Baileys (and Malibu for those of you that know Huffle) and eating roasted chestnuts (normally we would put these in the ash pan of our open fire but this year they had to go in the oven - they actually tasted better, our fingers didn't get all black from the burnt ash and we didn't have a mess to clear up the next morning!).
It hadn't snowed overnight and the snow was melting from the day before but by mid- morning it started again. Just small flurries but enough to watch from the warmth of our house.
Small woke up at just after 7am (bloomin' body clock - the same every day), very excited wanting to know if we could all get up. We sent him downstairs to check the time and see if Santa had been. He had - Small shouted "he's been and the sack is this full" making his arms go as wide as he could! Then he woke up Smallest and Moo and pulled the covers off us until we got up.
Bless, his little face when he saw all the presents that Santa had left for him - I thought he might be too old and too cool for all that but he did his annual shout up the chimney "Thank you Santa".
Excited looks at Santas presents
Small opens a snugly Christmas blanket.
Q: how do you get a stuck man from out of the tree?
A: Moo grabs his legs and pulls him out
Smallest wearing his Leicester City scarf (our home town) from Aunt & Uncle Pear
....and his lumberjack shirt from Grandma and Grandad - really warm and fleecy fur inside.
our box of goodies from my lovely friend Yahoo - thank you we are very happy with it all.
We stopped for a while and had breakfast of croissants and pain au chocolat
Huffle skyped HB - she had a ticket to see us in February for her Christmas present - hurrah.
The boys like to climb into their Christmas bags every year, when will they be too big for this tradition?
Small is almost too big - bigger bags next year please Moo.
....and a very Canadian Christmas it was too.......
We were sent lots of British things. Bunting, cake cases, flags, blow up guitars, tea bag holder, balloons, magnet, apron, tea towels, tins, and loads more....
Anyone would think we didn't want to integrate here!!!!!
Huffle's new hat - from Aunt & Unc Pear - very fetching - there are even little holes by his ears so he can hear, but fake ears to keep his real ones warm. He he.
Huffle and I spent ages putting this table football together - spot the deliberate mistake!!!! - when the boys went to bed, we took it apart and put it back together correctly!!
What a lot of presents!
We had lots of chocolate. English, Cadbury's, proper tasting chocolate. It may last us the year, if not HB will be given a list of what to bring when she comes.
Smallest's penguin racer - very funny
We had a game of Small's Disney Monopoly which had to be played in several parts because of boredom, food breaks, toilet breaks, Skype breaks..........
Metal pieces - just like when I was a child.
Loadsa money Moo
Gary my pig from Huffle
My billabong slippers from Huffle
My ceramic cake slice from Huffle
My warm slippers from Moo.
There were so many presents today it is impossible to show you them all or even write them all down but we had a lovely day. Thank you everyone for all our wonderful, thoughtful, funny, warm, yummy presents. During the move, on the ship, on the plane, in the car etc etc, some of the presents lost their tags, some tags got stuck to other presents. We opened the wrong ones a times and realised and passed them on. We are sorry if we don't mention or thank you all for every present, it got rather confiusing at times.
I also had a bit of a mare when I was wrapping too. I like to stick to a certain paper for each person and then I know who's is who's but this year I ran out of paper, got the papers mixed up and basically made a complete mess of it all. Huffle opened a couple of Moo's, Small got the wrong size socks, Smallest got the wrong colour things, Moo got some of Huffle's present before I quickly intercepted, but all in all it was a fun day.
The first Christmas in Canada. The first in our new house.
A new adventure starts here.
