All the photos were taken yesterday (Boxing Day). Two of our children were unable to make it; Ruth and her two girls, who live in Sweden and come home every other Christmas, and Kerry, who lives in March and had laryingitis, which meant that her two, Laura and Tom, didn't make it either. Our other three turned up, with their families, and granddaughter Amelia brought along (by invitation) her boyfriend/partner Marcus, so that we were sixteen in all (eighteen counting Ruby and Mango -Sarah's two spaniels). It was a lovely day; the table was laden with a buffet of Christmas leftovers mainly, and we spread ourselves over the ground floor to eat. I always like the way our grandchildren enjoy getting together with their cousins and swapping all the news.
Generally speaking (and not, I think, really by design) the youngsters sat round the kitchen/ dining room, and we 'grown ups' sat around the fire in the sitting room. The above photo was taken when I'd popped into the kitchen to replenish me plate, but was then called upon to answer a question about a previous Christmas, so sat down and did a bit of catching up myself.
The below picture was taken at tea time, when all the youngsters crowded into the sitting room to watch Granny cut up the Christmas cake.
This room is known variously as:- the sitting room, the drawing room, or the parlour (it was the bar-parlour we're told, when this place was an Inn).
By 6 o'clock, in view of the weather, driving rain, with some sleet, the family had headed homeward to, respectively, Wolverhampton, London, and Milton Keynes. Ann and I then sat by the fire ostensibly to read the books that son Jon had given us for Christmas, but in reality we sat and dozed, until the 'phone started ringing to tell us they were home safely.
It has been a lovely Christmas.
2 comments:
Glad you had a nice Christmas and I wish you a Happy New Year. Is there something special about a Christmas Cake or can it be any kind of cake?
Thank you Lori. Do you not have Christmas cakes? They are something like birthday cakes, and are usually fruit cake, made by the mistress of the house, iced, and decorated with a Christmas theme - either crib scenes, or holly, or the Bethlehem Star, or Father Christmas, or mistletoe, or snowmen (see illustration to this blog, the Sunday before Christmas. As Christmas lunch tends to be a fairly heavy meal, at tea time (perhaps at about 5p.m., we usually have a cup or so of tea accompanied only by a slice of Christmas cake, and as this is a fairly solid fruit cake, marzipanned and iced, this is usually considered quite sufficient for the rest of the day, although most families have their own traditions on this score.
Happy New Year to you both.
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