A (mostly) lovely Christmas

We had a very pleasant Christmas Day, starting with a light breakfast (we didn't want to spoil our appetites), and then decamped to the lounge to open the mountain of presents waiting for us. As you can see, Tom was (and still is) very pleased with his desk and chair, and immediately set about creating masterpieces from the various drawing-based presents from Grannie and Grandpa. His early works have more than a hint of Jackson Pollock about them, albeit in wax crayon (that the artist tried to eat on a number of occasions). As we expected, Tom was also very impressed by the vast quantities of paper and cardboard floating around the lounge, but did his best to tidy it away. Bless him. In any case, the occasion wore him out, and we had to put him down for his first morning nap for ages: not a bad thing, as he wasn't hanging around the kitchen while Christmas lunch was prepared. We had roast rib of beef (rare), served with roast spuds, various veggies and Yorkshire puddings. The beef was as good as I've had - it just goes to show: you should always get your meat from a good butcher, not your local supermarket. Tom didn't really touch the beef, but wolfed down industrial quantities of veg and a good chunk of Yorkshire pud. Instead of Christmas pud, Mum & Dad had brought a fruit sponge with spiced fruit. We all enjoyed it, including the lad.

We didn't do a great deal after lunch - tried to make Tom a snowman in the back garden, but the low, low temperatures meant that the snow was too powdery, so we tried him again on his sledge - still tears and grumbling, so we brought his walker and his bus out, which seemed to be more acceptable.
Despite not stuffing ourselves at lunchtime, we didn't fancy a big tea, so we just grazed on a cold buffet, which seemed to do the trick. A few hours later, though, everything went badly wrong. Mum & Dad first came down with a stomach bug, then me and finally Nik. We all felt ghastly for pretty much all of Boxing Day, hardly eating anything and staying in bed for extended periods. Fortunately, Tom didn't come down with it and stayed healthy and cheerful all day. I think this helped us all, as it's hard to feel too bad with his smiling face in front of you. We were all in bed pretty early, keen to put a horrible day behind us.

Happily, we all awoke on the 27th feeling much better, albeit rather hungry. Mum & Dad decided to stay an extra day, having written off the day before. We left Nik behind at home and took His Nibs to Attingham Park for some fresh air. We had a third attempt at fun on the sledge, with great success. We towed him round one of the woodland walks, which he loved, giggling and laughing all way (see photo). We would have made it all the way back to the house on the sledge, but a highly excited 5 month old cocker spaniel puppy tried to give him a kiss, which caused total meltdown. I carried him to the café, where we each had a coffee and Tom had an early lunch, which he ate pretty well. We drove home, with Mum trying to keep Tom awake in the back of the car. I'm not sure what was going on, but it produced peals of laughter.

Mum & Dad set off back to London the following morning. I think they had a good time with Tom - he certainly enjoyed having them here and was on cracking form almost all the time - charming and very entertaining. Then, when Nik was doing cakey things in the kitchen, I took Tom for a trip to Asda. He refused point blank to walk there, but walked all the way back (apparently the first time ever). This did take an absurdly long time though - he had to admire himself in every Asda window and then stopped to do his version of Riverdance in every single puddle (at least 100). I reckon the whole trip took a good 30 minutes, but he so enjoyed it.
Following his afternoon nap, we decided to get some "fresh air" and headed out to The Clock Tower for a swift half. We enjoyed our drinks while Tom went up and down a short flight of steps about 50 times - very good practice.

Tom was back in nursery yesterday morning, during which time Nik caked and I translated, then we collected him at 1.00pm and headed straight up the road to Chester for our evening with the Cameron, Lisa & the girls. Tom now knows Maggie and Tamsin quite well, so we didn't get the usual couple of hours of shyness. M & T played so nicely with Tom, especially given that he's a fair bit younger than either of them. He managed to climb two long flights of stairs up to their room, where he had a wonderful time galloping round with them and playing with their (vast number of) toys. All 8 of us sat down for dinner together at about 6.00, whereupon we were delighted to see Tom wolf down a huge dinner of beef & bean chilli, rice, sour cream, nachos and Cameron's home-made bread and butter pudding. We thought he'd burst. In the end, he had quite a late night, and slept right through until morning with only 1 short wake-up. Result.
This morning we all headed out to a very well-stocked farm shop-cum-café, where we all had bacon/sausage sandwiches, and Tom then charged round the shop like a loony and then charged round outside, until he fell over and covered himself in mud.
We set off home around noon, stopping only at Waitrose in Newport for some cordial for Nik. I think I may be been got by a mobile speed camera on the Whitchurch by-pass, so I'll have my eye on the post for the next couple of weeks.
So, Boxing Day apart, we've all had a lovely festive period. And we still have a few celebrations to go, as we're off to Haddenham to exchange pressies and meet our new niece.