the wash up

I'll let you in a little secret - we actually celebrated Christmas yesterday as Nadie was starting work early this morning ... and before you start feeling sorry for her having to work today ... a lot of the other staff would have had family commitments ... and she was entirely sanguine about the pay rates !!

Nonna of course was already up here, and Nadie and The Boy arrived at midday with the grandkittens who are staying Chez Catsmum for a week or so. Nadie and Chris had brought all their presents up to put under my tree and after a lavish lunch of soup, lasagne, pork, turkey, prawns, roast veggies, salad and dessertwe opened them all.
I can tell that The Boy fits into my family just fine
... all of this detritus:
is the wrappings from his present to Nadie
which was
this
a whitegold and diamond nose stud

I got the definite impression that Nonna liked her shawl

David scored some new furniture and lots of small things to play with but his absolute favourite present was/is this articulated bead and wire thingie from The Boy

and me ?
... do you remember the three new Discworld novels that I scored last week for my birthday ?
well, I now have the next five to add to them. Yahoo! Three from Nadie and The boy and two from David [ needless to say Nadie was responsible for his choices ]
There was also a lovely T2 pack of breakfast, lunch and afternoon teas from #1 son & co
beautiful sterling cat earrings from my friend Karen
heart shaped millifiore earrings from friend Terry
... and a container of congealed, melted chocolate from my sister-in-law who still hasn't worked out after 35 years that chocolate = migraine. .. so I'm an ungrateful wretch. So sue me !

Then after all that, while we were still impersonating a pod of beached post-prandial whales, we had the second sitting so that Nadie and The Boy could head back to the Big Smoke.
which was. of course, when Nonna, David and I settled down for an evening of Carols by Candlelight as whinged about yesterday

So the upshot is that today has felt like Boxing Day

I got up at the usual ungodly hour, fed assorted goats, cats and dog, and then took myself, a cuppa, and a good book out onto the verandah to read in peace and a quiet that was only punctuated by some early birds discussing the whereabouts of the best worms, and the barely audible strains of Christmas carols emanating from the CFA truck which was apparently doing the rounds of the neighborhood. I would imagine it takes a fair bit of community spirit to volunteer to spend the early hours of Christmas Day driving Santa around in a fire truck and handing out sweets.

David put in an appearance and was persuaded back to bed with some breakfast and the promise of Muppet Treasure Island.
MIL didn't surface until Dave got a bit loud around 10.30ish and then she spent several hours parked in front of the live feed of the Midnight Mass from the Vatican.
The day has involved television [all] and knitting [me ] and reading [ also me ] and gardening [ yes, also me ] some sitting outside [all] a short walk [all] and a minimum amount of anything that could remotely be interpreted as housework

all in all a pretty good day even if it didn't feel quite like Christmas day

and to finish:
Extremely Weird and Totally Unexplainable Catsmum Christmas Factoid:
I don't have a favourite Christmas movie. I have never seen It's A Wonderful Life or Miracle on 54th Street, and haven't actually watched a 'Christmas movie' in years. Probably not since the kids got past the Rudolph-the-red-nosed-reindeer stage. Sad but true !