Well hello 2019. It’s still early days so I’ve not really registered that it is a new year just yet, but I have a good feeling about this year.

We had a fabulous Christmas with the children and the festive season hasn’t quite finished in our house. The tree might be down but Polly is still sporting a Christmas jumper and keeps breaking out into ‘jingle bells’ every few minutes.

Christmas Eve was a day working for me and an evening working for Henry but it didn’t stop the fun, including a new band in the making.

We laid out the bits for Santa and he didn’t disappoint. Polly was made up with the stocking left in her room and had great fun decorating daddy with stickers!

After a bit more present opening under the tree and a fairly uninspiring breakfast of marmite on toast (I might have forgotten to get anything fancy in!) we then coated up for a little adventure. We joined up with Nanny and Pops and headed up onto Dartmoor. It’s always been a wish of Nanny’s so we thought why not make it this year.

The weather was better than we’d left and we actually found more people up there than expected. Polly surprised us all and walked up Haytor by herself. There was lots of puddle jumping with Nanny which kept Seb very amused.

We had an unconventional lunch- a picnic in the boot, which again proved a hit with the little people.

We then all headed back home for a more conventional Christmas meal and Seb went to town on his roast.

Boxing Day had us up and about early too. We headed down to the seafront so that Henry could fulfill a Sidmouth tradition. The swim. It basically consists of a few hundred mad people some donning fancy dress, all running into the sea for a splash about. He thoroughly enjoyed it, just maybe the hot chocolate and donuts afterwards a bit more!

After heading home to get warmed up properly we headed over to the family Boxing Day gathering where we ate plenty more food and enjoyed each other’s company. Seb in particular enjoyed the homemade meatloaf.

Henry took the kids to another family party a couple of days later, sadly I had work. But they definitely had a lot of fun, with Seb trying his luck on getting some bubbles!

New Year’s Eve found me working a busy but fun shift. Although the 3AM finish after a full on day with the kids including a toddler party almost broke me and the shift itself did break my shoes! This did make for a good excuse to head into town yesterday to spend a couple of vouchers though. But as we went out for most of the day I’ve now got no choice but to do the tidying up I’ve been putting off today as I don’t think the pile of presents in the corner is quite as acceptable with no tree above it.

So that’s it really for a recap on our Christmas shenanigans. I’m not really into the whole new year, new me thing and don’t really do resolutions as I never stick to them. But I’ve done a bit of reflecting the last couple of days since the big bell tolled. You see a few friends of ours have been through a few quite shitty things during the festive season and these sort of things just make you appreciate what you have. We have a happy marriage, 2 fabulous children, a roof over our heads, jobs and we are well on the way to achieving the things we want in life. Some people aren’t quite so lucky. Some people aren’t quite so appreciative. Some people thrive off the negativity in their life. Some people don’t realise how much their words and actions negatively affect someone else. Some people get caught up in their own life they don’t realise how much of someone else’s they are missing. Some people get so caught up on their social media life they forget how much they’re missing in their real life. 2019, maybe this might be the year that these people take a step back and realise what’s really important. One can only hope.