Christmas has been very busy and a tad chaotic but it’s been fun for us.
We never used to do much on the 24th but a few years ago a close friend of ours lost first her father and then her mother to cancer and to make it all a little less lonely for her and her sister, we invited them over for Christmas Eve dinner. It’s now become a tradition of sorts for a few years (they bring dessert) and it’s always lovely having them. We keep it simple with table grilling but it’s still festive. A little slideshow picture impression of our December 24th (and yes, I blur faces of everyone except Mr E and myself).
Our Christmas Day on the 25th always starts with a brunch that Mr E prepares and after that we exchange a few gifts. In the afternoon my in-laws arrive for drinks and dinner and we celebrate Christmas with them.
Oh, and the cat too enjoys the gift unwrapping!
Boxing Day, or Second Christmas Day as it’s called in The Netherlands, is always reserved for Christmas with my family at my mother’s house. My mother does a reading and a little speech for all of us, we then unwrap gifts (we do Secret Santas instead of everyone getting everyone else gifts they don’t need), have a buffet dinner, there is always a lot of chatter and singing and dancing and we end with sparkles. This year, due to circumstance, it ended up with Mr E and myself doing most of the work regarding the food (from cake and coffee to buffet dinner), so it was pretty busy for us. But fun nonetheless.
Granted, we do need two days to recover! It all looks lovely and great and it really was, but we’ve had some challenges to deal with as well, which means we have been a little less resilient. It has made doing all this this year somewhat straining despite all my efforts to not make too much of an effort. So, despite all the fun and warmth, it does make me happy that the biggest chaos of hosting the holidays (and lets face it, we pretty much hosted three parties three days in a row) is now over and it’s time to just chill.
And speaking of chaos: yesterday morning my mother called me to tell me that at 1.30 am, she, my older sister and my younger brother (who are staying with her) were awakend by fire engines. Apparently there was a fire in the apartment below my mother’s and she could see flames outside her window! A fireman even came into her apartment to assess the situation below. Luckily it was quickly extinguished, turns out it had ‘only’ been a fire on the balcony below and no one needed to be evacuated. Phew! In the second picture below, it’s my brother and sister looking down at the action outside my mother’s front door.
Also yesterday I vowed to not take care of anyone for a change, although that didn’t quite go to plan as I unexptedly had to cat-sit my older sister’s cat (he loves attention) and accept the groceries in her flat that she had ordered online.
Today a little more chilling time with some time for blogging now. Junior is at work today (he badly injred his knee a few weeks ago, so we chauffeur him to and from work as he can barely walk), Mr E is reading a book I gave him for Christmas and mini me is chattering away with our cat in her lap. Most obligations must wait for a later time, like me having to send out the new family calendar (that I make every year) to family members who were not able to come. What’s an extra few days, right? Hopefully tomorrow.
I go cat-sitting again at the end of the afternoom before I pick up Junior (Mr E brought him this morning, I pick him up again) and this evening, after a leftovers dinner, we go see the new Avatar movie on an IMAX 3D screen. I’m glad I have another week and a half of Christmas holidays left. 🙂
The Book of Esther 