A Christmas Tale...

Hope you had a great Christmas and have a happy New Year people!

So, I've just got back from a sales shopping spree in Tunbridge Wells. My good friend Mr Mastercard was nice and bought me some stuff there! However, there is the small matter that what should have taken us 45 mins door-to-door, took us 2 hours. We got stuck in a major traffic jam on the outskirts of the town, that was the queue to get in to Royal Victoria Place. One hour and 15 later we got to the shops!!!

It was a very good spree overall, apart from the fact that the Disney Store has closed down since the last time I was there. Major :-(

So I worked pretty much all the time in the run-up to Christmas, including Christmas Eve and then Boxing Day, Bank Holiday Monday and I'm back in New Year's Eve and on my birthday too! Hoooray. Then I'll be 22... Hmmmm.

Sooo, Christmas....

Weeel, we did our big food shop on the 23rd - having pre-ordered the turkey! Then the parents did quite a lot of the cooking on Christmas Eve when I was at work dealing with all of the genuinely miserable last-minute shoppers. When I got home I wrapped my presents and then we were all ready for the big day! It panned out like this...

9am I'm roused from my slumber by Tom texting me, so I suppose there was little else for it - time to get up.

By 10am I was all ready and downstairs. On go the Christmas lights. The first argument of the day broke out over how many parawns we need. Food prep begins - the dogs look on in anticipation of what is to come - out comes the sprout tree, swede and carrot, roaties, prawns and parsnips.

Come 11am kitchen activity is going on in earnest. Out comes the custard, cranberry sauce, seafood sauce, caramellised onion etc. Veg makes its was in to saucepans and on to baking trays. Plates are laid out for the first course, the prawn cocktail.

Half an hour later sees me grappling with the sprout tree. Mum rejoices that the annual hunt for the cake forks ahs been rendered uneccessary - she found then in October and had left them out specially!

12 midday Rejoicing cut short as an argument erupts over the location of the corkscrew. Swearing joins cacaphony of arguing as Mum trips over the dog. Dad opens the wine with a multi-tool, when he turns to get a glass, the dogs lick the bottle top. The wine is tipped away as its off and we open Cava (disgusting) and a Rosé Lambrusco to have with dinner.
It is also suspected that the seafood sauce is off, but we add it liberally to the prawns anyway.

By 12.30pm Mum is ready to dish up the dinner and also does the dogs version at the same time. We open a third bottle of wine - all without a corkscrew. Heated debate arises over which way to point a cork when pulling out of a bottle.

1pm We have an argument over who should clean up the swede/carrot mash Mum has just dropped on the floor. The dog eats it off the floor, so all is well.

The dogs dinner is put down and we sit down to our Prawn Cocktail at 1.30pm and, finally, at 1.45pm we eat dinner. We're done by 2.30pm and agree to postpone dessert until later. The dogs gleefully finish off the leftovers. Present opening begins, only pausing for the Queen's Speech.

5pm We all agree on the fact that Christmas TV is shockingly bad and put on a DVD - Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

On the present front, I got my lovely red DS and four games for it, which has kept me unequivocally occupied ever since. That was my main present and then I got some face cream, fluffy socks, a book about Christmas and money from parential friends.

So under the tree now are my birthday presents - I know what they are, but I'm not gonna say, because that would spoil all the suprise!! Let's just say that its all looking very pink!

So I had today off and I 'm off tomorrow, before a couple more days of work. Then the great occasion on the horizon is my birthday trip to London with my dear friends Sarah and Tom, for the weekend. More when I have birthday-age to report.

**HAPPY 2010**