Well hello new year. I thought I better follow through on my last blog promise of actually keeping this page updated with a little look back at our Christmas shenanigans. Although it does feel like Christmas was a hundred years ago already.

The build up did feel a bit reduced this time as the kids broke up from school so late- then spent an eternity off in freezing January which definitely seems like a smart choice. We did discover a new Christmas film in the form of ‘That Christmas’ which Clara became obsessed with, although she kept calling it ‘Charlie’ which proved for an interesting scene the first time she asked for it like this as I had no idea which Charlie she was referring to! Clearly mischievous Charlie was her favourite character which is quite apt considering how much mischief the smallest child gets up to. For example, on one of our last walks home of the year she parked her scooter up next to a garden full of Christmas decorations, leant over their garden wall and bit into a giant plastic candy cane the same size as her. Polly shouted (brilliantly drawing attention we didn’t need) then the little beast proceeded to stick her tongue out in an attempt to lick the bloody thing instead. I yanked her back and put her back on the scooter and then found myself giving her a lecture I honestly didn’t think I would be giving to a 4 year old- no we don’t eat Christmas decorations no matter how good they look.

Once the kids did finally break up we cracked on with some Christmas activities including the traditional Santa visit. We went to a grotto hosted by some friends of ours and it was fab. Crafting, biscuit decorating and a snow machine, equals very happy children. The kids of course were very chatty with the main man himself and gave us plenty of giggles. From Clara threatening to eat all his biscuits under the tree, to Seb declaring that Henry and I should be on the nice list as we clean up after him. It was a very chilled afternoon which we all needed, followed by fish and chips with Nanny and Pops at their house.

This year for the first time in forever I was actually off work on Christmas Eve which made a nice change. I took the kids to a nativity service at the church which proved entertaining. The big 2 burnt out very quickly and curled up on chairs choosing to watch instead of engage, but Clara was in her element. She was stood up on her chair singing and dancing to every song. They all came alive again at the end with the arrival of lots of snowballs in every direction prompting a giant snowball fight that I had to drag them away from.

Henry milked Christmas morning and afternoon so our morning looked slightly different than normal but the kids took it in their stride. Although Polly did get confused in the middle of the night and had to be returned back to her bed. Then at 4:40AM I caught the big 2 creeping downstairs claiming they were confused about the time. They both got marched back to their room very quickly. At about 6 though, 3rd time lucky for the big 1, they got the right sort of time and came bouncing into our bed with their stockings. It did feel a bit weird opening them without Daddy, but they had enough in them to distract them and we took lots of photos for him. We then headed downstairs when I realised I was going to need to carry on that distraction for another 3 hours before he was home. So, of course we watched That Christmas again and the classic Father Christmas with the Snowman, had some breakfast and waited patiently.

Once he was home and showered the usual Christmas morning chaos ensued and they were all very happy with their gifts. Henry and I then did a bit of sharing the lunch load. I had prepped all the veg the day before, he cooked then I washed up afterwards. We did have an absolute hoot during lunch with the crackers providing some interesting jokes and trivia. Seb concerned us only slightly with his reply to ‘What is taller when younger and smaller when older?’… ‘A dead body’ apparently. Not sure where that came from. And then he got caught out by the beautifully brilliantly confusing English language that meant he got ‘wind’ and ‘wind’ mixed up, so confidently gave the wrong answer to his riddle of ‘What passes in front of the sun making a sound but no shadow?’ Poor boy, it took us a few moments to work out that it was ‘wind’ as is in the weather and not ‘wind’ as in a wind-up toy like he’d read out.

We headed up to a little family do on the Sunday, which provided a lot of fun, but apart from that we had a very low-key Christmas, which I think we probably needed to be honest. We did attempt a New Year’s Eve thing with the kids, but it sort of failed. Previously, I’ve worked and Henry has done the little cheeky fake new year countdown with them and got away with it. This year, Polly was not to be fooled. After doing a little countdown with the help of the Sydney fireworks on YouTube, I declared it was time for bed, then Polly said she didn’t believe it was midnight already. She was having none of it and then started shouting ‘show me the time!’ In the end we came clean and told her she really wasn’t missing out on much as we’d just be doing the same thing again in a few hours time. When we reassured her that we probably wouldn’t even stay up to see the year in she finally conceded and went to bed. Henry followed through with this promise, I however did not. I was binge watching Black Doves and looked at the time at 12:15 before debating watching another one, decided against it before realising I’d just missed midnight anyway.

To be fair, they did have a blast in the build up to the countdown fail with some crazy dancing with the help of a YouTube dance party. A highlight of this came when Polly asked for the ‘eye of the tiger’ song- I thought she meant ‘Roar’ by Katy Perry, but no, she meant the actual ‘Eye of the tiger’ song and when I sacked off the pop Princess for the classic she shouted- ‘yeah, that’s what I’m talking about!’

As mentioned, for some unbeknown reason the kids were off school until Wednesday this week, which proved a bit of a stretch when it was cold and they’d very much had enough of each other’s company the second the new year was welcomed in. So, whenever it was dry we headed out even if it was for an hour or so just to see if fresh air would do some parenting for me- it worked most of the time to be fair. You feel a bit less guilty then when you come back home and veg under a blanket with a hot chocolate and a film which usually followed any walk.

Polly did give us a laugh on one of these walks down to the river. The kids were launching rocks into the river, one of their favourite outdoor activities, when she turned to me and asked how to skip stones. At the same time she launched a rock in without much thought and of course the bloody thing went skipping across the surface. ‘Like that’ I laughed back at her. She then spent a happy half hour trying to see how many more she could skip and proved herself a lot better than me so I think in future she can teach me!

Seb had a little milestone in the holidays too when he finally got his first wobbly tooth. It wasn’t very wobbly so I was assuring him it would be at least another week before it popped out then of course my kids proved me wrong again. It popped out into his hand yesterday afternoon walking out the school gates when he was eating a pack of cheddars. He was delighted. I on the other hand was frantically trying to figure out where the hell to put the thing whilst juggling 3 bags and a feral 4 year old on a scooter. So in the end it got bundled up into the cheddar wrapper for safekeeping. Luckily it made it home safe and was swapped out in the middle of the night with a 50p that he’s very pleased with.

Anyway, that’s my Christmas wrap-up, I need to crack on with bedtime which I’m sure will be a typically interesting event as I still haven’t been able to replace the bathroom bulb as the one we need isn’t in stock still- this means a candlelit bath for the kids which will absolutely not be as romantic and idyllic as it sounds! Wish me luck…