Hand’s up who has been a rubbish blogger – yeah that would be me with her hand in the air. So where have I been and what have I been doing. Leading up to Christmas I was ill twice in two weeks which kind of threw everything up in the air and I attempted to catch what I could to keep up. Thankfully Christmas arrived and I’m better but feel like the things that dropped need to be deal with and organised. Hopefully 2013 will be a bit better when it comes to my organisational skills!
With this being our second Christmas with Our Sidekick it got nicknamed between Chris and I as Christmas 2012: The Sequel hence the title of this blog post.
Christmas was always going to be tough with the arrangements for Our Sidekick – we wanted him to see his Mum because it’s Christmas and family is important but at the same time there were things going on with Social Services which meant that it wasn’t as simple as just organising extra contact.
Contact was organised and so Christmas and the festive season started back on the 16th with the church production/nativity. I’d originally been on the writing team but due to a change in plan I ended up playing the part of Elizabeth in the production. It was the nativity story but it started with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden then it jumps to Mary being visited by Gabriel and then going to stay with Elizabeth. It was kind of scary standing up the front of church and all eyes being on you. I was singing with one of the girls from the OM team who was Mary in the production.
Apparently it was really good and lots of people were moved by it which is good but I was so glad to get off the stage at the end of that bit and be able to breathe a big sign of relief! I’d only learn the song about two weeks before the performance and I was singing the first verse by myself. There were also interruptions that couldn’t really be changed and they threw me a bit.
On the following Sunday it was the Christingle service at church – following that we went to my Second Mum’s house and we all hung out and chatted for about 4 hours then we headed home to chill out.
Next Christmas event was on the 22nd, Contact between Our Sidekick and his Mum had been organised so Christmas for him started then as he got some of his presents then. We also had The Fountain Christmas party that evening, it was good fun especially when it was my turn on charades and I had Les Miserables – so how do you do that one? Carefully that’s for sure!
(Chris is watching The Hotel Inspector next to me – oh dear it’s a dodge one this week!)
Next up was just my adventure – on Christmas Eve following work (I had to work for the morning) I headed into town to The Fountain as me and my friend were singing Christmas Carols to the customers and people were joining in too. Following that I grabbed a coffee with Brains (she’s now a doctor it’s super exciting!) She’s about to move to New York for the next year or so to do a research post. If she’ll let me stay with her I might save up and visit her but I have to work on Chris that going to NY by myself won’t be that bad and I will survive and not get into trouble or something like that – I’m sure that Brains would take the time to come to La Guardia or JFK or wherever my flight gets into to collect me or she’d write me concise instructions of how to get from the airport to her apartment or to the sights if she couldn’t come with me during the day or something. Anyway thats wonderings for another day. We wandered to a book shop in town so that I could get the missing Christmas present, when that was sorted I dropped her home and headed home to my family.
My in-laws came for tea on Christmas Eve – normally the family visits happen between Christmas and New Year but due to the schedules around here we had to fit it in where possible. We all hung out and watched Home Alone 3 and then had dinner, following dinner we played Kinect Sports which was kind of funny especially when my Father In Law was getting more and more irritated with the camera because it wouldn’t pick up his movements properly. They headed home about 8/9ish and I had some time to catch up with Our Sidekick and Chris before Our Sidekick went to bed.
I had expected Christmas Day to start really but actually it didn’t. Chris and I got up about 9:30 and started on winding up Our Sidekick. He was already downstairs watching TV so we stood at the top of the stairs making comments about how he clearly didn’t want any presents and that he should have woken us up earlier. While this is happening Chris has got fully dressed and as soon as we hear Our Sidekick coming up the stairs we both jump back into bed and play that we’re asleep and that Our Sidekick must have imagined it. The craziness continued until we got to church – we were then kind of calm given that we were sat in the second row from the front but then the crazy kicked off again when we got home. Before doing presents we helped Chris clear up the kitchen from dinner the night before and getting bowls and pans ready to cook Christmas dinner. I don’t think Our Sidekick was too impressed by this but when given the choice that if he helped we’d be able to open presents sooner I think it all balanced out in the end.
Merry Christmas one and all. So many ideas and not enough time now rather than my time being taken up by illness!
