The Christmas Getaway

As much as I loved Christmas this year, thank all that is yellow and pointy that it's over with for another year. Give or take two days ;) Christmas morning, as mentioned, everyone slept in late - aside from me, that is - but once the smell of cooking turkey kicked them out of bed, things went from peace and quiet to paper-hell-on-earth. Presents were ripped open, there was much in the way of "ooh" "ahh" and "huh?" but otherwise, the kids got everything they wanted.

Once the bombsite was cleared up, it was an SAS Military operation to get kids, woman, dogs, cats, bags, suitcases and everything else sorted, ready and clean. Ish. It occured to me that with less than an hour to go, *I* had forgotten to shave and shower. Oops. So I got ready with minutes to spare, and we were whisked off to Jo's parents.

Everything was great. Me and Jo did most of the cooking, with her mum poking in every now and then. The two oldies sat and complained a fair amount, but meh. Jo's dad was up and down too, cheery one minute, grouchy-as-heck the next, but again, meh. Me and Jo had a nice time away, and the kids had a blast - both of which were spoilt rotten. Christmas Day was filled with food, laughs, gifts and much in the way of booze.

Boxing Day (that's the day after Christmas Day for you odd non-Boxing-Day-sorts) was much of the same, though with less gifts, more booze, lots of laughs, games, grouchy oldies, and people being generally unhelpful when me, Jo and Fran trying to clear up.

This morning - as much fun as we'd had - we wanted to head home. As much as we love staying there, we have our limits, and after a great couple of days, we came in, unpacked, fired up the heating, and vegged out.

Despite a couple of tearing instances, me and Jo had a really good Christmas. We had a few quiet moments together, away from everyone, talking about Bethy, and imagining her having an excellent christmas up there, but generally, we were fine. Of course, last year was similar - our first without her - but it was New Years Eve that was harder, so we'll see how it goes next weekend.

All that remains for me to point out, is that if you are drinking lots of vodka/peach schnapps in pure fruit juice, remember what lots of fruit juice does BEFORE drinking huge quantities.

Thank goodness for soft tissue paper......

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3 Responses to “The Christmas Getaway”

debbie said...

yuk! what a great vision, Dan and soft toilet tissue, besides that glad you had a relativly good time, fingers crossed this New Year will be a tad easier, but who am I kidding?? No one, it will go how it goes., we will be at home veggitating as Missery guts doesn't like to celebrate anyway, so doing some nibbles and drinks for 2 possibly 4 friends who will be gone by 10pm..

Nancy Jensen said...

Dan, so glad that you, Jo and the kids had a nice Christmas. And the old people are supposed to be grumpy! They are just doing their jobs. I think Karl is trying to get a head start. hehe...

Hoping that the new year brings you joy and comfort in memories past and happy times to come.

Keep up the blogging. You don't need to write a book to entertain us... you already are! :-)

The Special Zipper said...

Glad that you were able to enjoy Christmas and have time out to remember Bethany.

On the dunny paper side however .. it could have only got worse if you had broadened your description to smelling like the scnapps consumed!