Mum and Dad and Mark all arrived on Christmas Eve and the countdown to the man in red started in earnest - food was prepared and Caitlin decorated the Christmas Cake that her Granny had brought up, while Mum and I ran out to pick up the turkey and the last bits and pieces.
I baked some more cookies this time we went with orange and lemon sugar cookies and Caitlin insisted that Santa needed two and that the carrots should be cut into 18 pieces 2 for each of the nine reindeer apparently.
She set them out on the fireplace then started the serious task of hanging up the stockings - she took her job so seriously.
Even Cj and I have stockings - I fill his and he and Jennie fill mine, I in turn do a stocking for Jennie and we did one for Mark too as he was here. Yes we are big kids but it is all part of the fun.
Cait and I then track Santa's progress with Norad until he was over Lithuania which is where one of Caitlin's class mates comes from and then we headed to bed to read "T'was the night before Christmas" all the kids have been feeling poorly with nasty coughs so actually fell asleep quite quickly. I actually tracked Santa until he was over Scotland before I went to my bed too it was so cool.
The kids were quite civilised and didn't rise until 8 in the morning and even let me have a shower to help me breathe with this nasty chest infection - why oh why is it always Christmas we get hit with these things !?!
When we went down stairs Santa had been a bit naughty and made a bit of a mess with his magic dust - he is usually so good but was obviously in a rush this year.
The girls tackled their Santa gifts with gusto and Caitlin was thrilled with her new pony and Becca was so happy with her new body protector for riding. Check out her festive PJ's ( she is so going to kill me for this picture !!)
Isn't it funny how the smallest things in their stocking go down so well - Caitlin loved these cow socks she was always very fond of cows !!
and both the girls adored these Bush babies teddies, they definitely were a big hit, just show you you don't need huge expensive pressies to make them happy - although I think Becca's MP3 player from her Daddy and me went down well too.
Caitlin even wore her cow socks with her new dress, well comfort over style when you are a poorly girl.
Poor wee Rachel was so ill Christmas Eve and wasn't much better Christmas Day, that combined with the black eyes and the poor thing looked so ill and forlorn when she arrived over in the afternoon for dinner and more present giving.
It was crazy, even though we decided to do a Christcringle this year the tree was still laden with gifts and everyone was happy with the gifts they received because it was so much easier to carefully consider the person you had been allocated and find the perfect gift than to buy tonnes of presents with less thought and more stress for all.
We all went into the front room with Buck's fizz so Dad could take up his roll as chief present giver and Santa's helper - anyone want to take a guess what he got for Christmas ??
My lovely Secret Santa got me a new lens for my camera which I am thrilled with and a beautiful scarf and voucher for my favourite shop, I was such a lucky girl !! Thank you Santa :) I took this picture of Jen with my new lens.
My lovely husband got me a Turquoise DS - my favourite colour and Cooking guide ( hum is he trying to tell me something ??) and lots of other goodies and my daughter's got me a Filofax which I was looking for and a new big square punch.
While all these jolly proceedings were taking place the dinner was cooking - we have the full Christmas dinner with all the trimmings and it came together quite nicely, Jennie made the Starter which was gorgeous leek and mushroom vol Au vents, Mum made the desserts and I made the dinner with lots of help from Mum, she is my Chou chef in the kitchen according to her. I know I could never do it without her that is for sure and as Jen says it is amazing how we can all cook in the kitchen and there is never a row, it is fun to prepare together.
I was a bad girl and took no pictures of dinner except of Dad enjoying his new toy - my Dad was the main photographer in our house but sold his old camera when we moved to Ireland this is his first digital DSLR and it is a fabulous Canon Rebel - we were boring the pants of the others with all our talk of ISO values and such like the camera nerds we are !
After dinner we all relaxed and poor Rachel who had such a bad night on Christmas Eve fell asleep on her Mammy.
That evening we played charades badly - lets just say that I will never be able to watch Batman without feeling slightly embarrassed but in my defence I was filled with a lot of cough medicine and maybe shouldn't have had that large glass of Baileys when I decided it would be a good idea to re-enact the sleeping habits of a bat on the kitchen floor !!
We carried on the charades on Steven's day when David, Finn and Bern arrived up for another round of celebrations - apparently there is video footage of it which I am sure Mark took to bribe us all with !!
I have checked You tube to see if he actually made good on his threat to place it there but we seem okay - so far.
Rachel also had to go the doctors on Steven's day and was diagnosed with an awful throat infection, bless her, which explained why she was so ill on Christmas day.
Caitlin was also suffering and had been so good, the poor thing fell fast asleep with her new DVD player on her lap - which was just too cute a picture not to take.
We had a great evening with all the family there and it was lovely to see Bern again - she is just as lovely was we thought she was and even joined in the charades silliness with good humour.
Everyone finally headed home the next day leaving us a bit emptier to say the least - the house seems so quiet except for the mad coughing Cailtin and I keep doing constantly but I can truely say it was a Christmas to remember and I am happy we got to spend it with the mad family we have.
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