As always we celebrate the holiday period with our friends and family, trying to fit in as much and as many people as possible into the week between Christmas and the new year, as is feasible. This year we planned on doing very much this but trying to also have a relaxed Christmas too.

On Christmas Day itself, we started the day with opening stockings, getting dressed and enjoying breakfast together. Church was cancelled due to COVID. Being high in our area so we watched it on the television whilst the boys opened their Santa presents. We usually would venture to church to meet up with some of my long time friends and try to all get blessed during the communion.

We then headed over to my Grandmothers house where we meet up with my Mother and her side of the family at 12 noon. We enjoyed a full Christmas lunch, which consisted of a two course meal of turkey dinner and all of the trimmings, followed by Christmas pudding or this year my aunts had made a raspberry sponge (delicious)! This year we changed our normal routine and ventured on to my brothers home where we opened presents together, once upon a time when I was a child we weren’t able to do this until after the queens speech but since that is now a recording and not live, we can watch it at a later time.

Time always seems to go so fast and before we knew it, it was time to go home as Gavin needed to complete the nightly farm chores. When he got back in from jobs, we then had our second turkey dinner closely followed by the opening of presents with his side of the family.

On Boxing Day we had a quiet day at home of chilling whilst the children played with movies on in the background. I saved the sorting of the mess for the next day!

On New Years Eve, Gavin’s went to bed at 9pm. I stayed up to watch the television and saw the amazing show from York to Harrogate to Leeds. All the fireworks going off was insane and fabulous to see! On New Year’s Day itself we usually go to my Mothers house who cooks up a feast for us all to enjoy, but this year she wanted fo go the local pub and enjoy a day out. It was a lovely time, until Tobias needed to go to A&E to get his forehead sewn up!

By the end of the festive period I’m about ready for a holiday! Or maybe just getting back to normality! Which is exactly what I plan on doing fir the rest of January – decluttering of every room on the house, closely followed by deep cleaning to get ready for our imminent arrival!

Much love Rebecca