Christmas again and again and again

We've been 'doing' Christmas for ages now it seems.

The kids have been on holiday since last Wednesday, the teachers having two extra pupil free days at the end of the year - that took me by surprise. Ishbel had to spend a couple of days at Tanderra while Ian and I finished off the working year. Ian is now on holiday until 11th Jan while I will be back at work between Christmas and the New Year and in January until 11th Jan when I'll have a couple of weeks to get the kids through the long holidays - they go back to school at the end of Jan.

Our round of Christmas parties started with a BBQ at Bec and Steve's last Saturday before they piled kids and new pup into the car for Christmas on the north coast. Ishbel also had a party on Sunday at the pool but the rest of us had some respite until Wednesday (23rd) when we went to Janet and Steven's for a BBQ. Steven has been building new decking out the back so we went to admire it. And eat ourselves to a standstill! The next evening we were at Sharon's for dinner. And ate ourselves to a standstill!

It was a relaxed start to Christmas Day with the kids having quite long sleeps until the last one, Rob, got up about 9:30am. Karen, Dan and Xavier came over for lunch and stayed until about 6:30pm. We then had a quiet hour or so before Janet, Steven and their girls came over. That got rid of the Crhistmas pudding and Christmas cake (like we needed to eat anything else) which we worked off with a loud, tuneless, SingStar competition. The Colquhouns did not win!

Yesterday we headed down to Roey and Pete's for lunch with them and Pete's Mum, Pat. Roey and Pete have had renovations done and have opened up the back of the house with a new kitchen/family room with large french doors onto the garden. Looks good.

Tonight we are going out to a local Thai restaurant with Janet, Steven, Sharon and the girls. We started last year going out together on Christmas Eve rather than buy presents for the other families but coudn't arrange a night altogether before Christmas - on the night we were at Janet and Steven's Sharon couldn't come and on Christmas Eve when we went to Sharon's Janet was working so tonight is our Christmas dinner out - a bit of overkill at this stage but we're going through with it anyway.

Can't wait for a night in.