Happy New Year dear readers!

I hope you all had a good holiday.

Princess Eva

Christmas for the Wiley household was had in Watford this year. Although Louise was a bit apprehensive about my volunteering to cook the Christmas dinner in the end it all passed off really well.

We had Louise’s parents down for Christmas itself and on Christmas Eve we all went to St. Luke’s, our local parish church for their Christingle service. The place was packed, Louise and her dad had to stand, but it was really nice and a great way to start the celebration. Euan was even brave enough to go and collect his own Christingle and all the children stood around the church with the candles lit as the rest of the congregation sang a carol.

We spent the rest of the afternoon tracking Santa’s progress across the globe using Norad’s excellent SantaTrack website. Eaun was in charge in our “command and control centre” as he called out the place names that appeared on the website and then I used an atlas and pawn from my chess set to indicate the location. We let Euan track him as far as Casablanca before sending him off to bed, but not before providing Santa with his traditional mince pie and glass of brandy.

Amazingly Euan got up at his usual time and didn’t rush straight downstairs as he’d told his Nan and Granddad, instead he went into their room and lay with them for a bit before we all got up and went to see what Santa had left. You can see all the pictures in the gallery section.

Christmas Dinner went off without too much problem, except Louise set fire to the oven gloves (I think it was my fault, as I’d left a ring on by mistake) and then Louise’s mum set fire to her paper napkin! The only casualty was a tea towel I used to put out the oven gloves!

My Mum came down on the Wednesday after Christmas with my brother and his three kids following the day after. Euan and Eva had a riot with their cousins, it was a shame the weather wasn’t so good (or so bad that we’d got loads of snow) as it was a challenge to keep their enthusiasm contained within the house. I’m not sure how much they all slept the first night they were all together.

New Year was a relatively quiet affair. The family members had all gone home and we’d got our own bed back. Some friends came round but most had left before the New Year kicked in, either to get kids to bed or to attend a midnight service. Still it was a nice, relaxed way to bring in the New Year with friends.

Now it’s back to work for me today, with Euan, Eva and Louise back in to their respective routines tomorrow.