And so this is Christmas...2014

Good morning dear reader and Merry Christmas, I hope that you had the most splendid of days and that your boxing day hangover isn't too bad this morning, if it is then I suggest a quick Bloody Mary might be just the ticket, I'd have one myself but I need the coffee first!

Yesterday exceeded all of my expectations, we had a truly brilliant Christmas day, a little different to the last 15 years but really, I think having friends over for Christmas is such a brilliant idea that I want to do it every year, I also want to have an open house policy at Christmas because I truly believe that no one should be alone at Christmas.

I didn't take a lot of photos yesterday because to be quite frank if I wasn't cooking or eating I was generally kicking back and having fun.

Obviously there are just 1 or 2 photos of Holly, she's so blooming funny and cute, she was like an overexcited toddler yesterday and definitely overtired by the end of the day, so much so that she didn't even wake me up until 8am and even then it was by jumping on the bed for a huge cuddle!

I think all of the above photos were taken on Christmas eve just in case you're wondering why Looby is dressed and then in pyjamas and then dressed again.

Christmas day started off at a really respectable time, in fact it was around 9am when the kids finally got up, Holly and I had a lovely hour on our own having cuddles from about 8ish, it was certainly a very gentle start to Christmas day.  First present Looby got was a unicorn, she requested a unicorn specifically but because I couldn't fit a real one in our house I thought a knitted one might work just as well.

Abigail doing her self tickling face....no I don't know either!

Holly got a lovely Christmas outfit to wear and it was greatly admired when we went for a lovely Christmas morning dog walk down to the park!

Despite what you would think Li and I only drank 2 bottles of Prosecco yesterday, it seems we're quite good at fun family portraits and the ones with me in them were taken by top photographer Looby, I wonder if I could send her to future portrait sessions.

I have to say that I really excelled myself with Christmas lunch yesterday, a huge rack of pork was a massive success, Iain and Looby both has poussin and I don't think anyone left anything, it was simply yumptious!

Holly loves Li's daughter, new best friend!

and in the midst of all of the Christmas chaos Looby set up her foot spa and read a book whilst we all got vibration related illnesses, how noisy are foot spas?

We played festive bingo afterwards for chocolate coins and then we settled down for Dr Who which was pretty good, I'm not sure it was my favourite Christmas Dr Who but to be honest I need to watch it again when I can properly concentrate on it.  After that everyone watched Miranda (recorded for later for me) while I made a huge Christmas buffet supper full of yummy treats though we all mainly just picked at stuff!

Today is all about taking it easy, the girls are going to their dads for Christmas number 2, Li is going to her mums for Christmas number 2 and Holly and I shall be very much in relaxation mode, i'd stay in my pyjamas if it wasn't for the fact that I've promised her a very long dog walk.

Whatever you get up to today, have a fabulous Boxing day and I'll be back in a few days with more festive tales.