Oh Sh*t its 2014 already

Lord, one minute I was panicking about what to buy people, how I was going to pay for it and will they think I'm a cheapskate because I only got them chocolates and the next we are here, New Year!

What a whirlwind, not in the sense that our time has been taken up with relentless parties and endless entertaining because quite frankly its been a quiet one.  Its more the roller coaster of emotions that have been running through the house on a daily basis.  Don't get me wrong they have mostly been positive ones, with hyperactive giggling children, semi drunk over loving teenagers and the continuing honeymoon period of my current relationship but there has been a few dents in the whole rose tinted merriment of the holiday season.

For instance the slight panic I felt on Christmas eve with the prospect of 60 odd presents still to wrapped at 7pm and my designated helper gently snoring on the sofa.  This panic state was quickly averted by me also putting my head down and then us waking up together at 10pm and commencing the wrapping until 1am Christmas morning..See no problem really until of course we were woken up at 5am by 2 very excited little people.

Then there was the Boxing Day or otherwise known as, Mum's 70th birthday, moment of surrealism where we presented Mum with her birthday present...(a meat grinder) which she proceeded to completely unwrap take out the box and study intently. Leaving, what I would consider, some rather gruesome looking apparatus to hand and a strange glint in her eye as she handled the sausage maker expectantly.  I spent the rest of the day with the music of Sweeney Todd randomly popping in to my head at inopportune moments.

Then there was the rather unpleasant news on the 28th where we discovered that the house has damp via an email with alot of red writing and capitalisation in it. This was while we were trying to enjoy a local kids Christmas disco, which had already been slightly spoiled by the fact that Santa had run out of Christmas presents for all the children and had had to make a quick exit back to the sodding North Pole and back again (well that's what it felt like time wise) to magically provide presents to appease all the parents who'd paid the £5 for this enchanting event (tube of milky buttons, not impressed, to be honest though the kids couldn't have cared less of it was just the tube).

By the 30th we'd got to the running out of food stage and it was really a short straw moment as none of us had any desire whatsoever to leave the house, but New Years Day was fast approaching and someone had to go.  Mum was the hero of the hour, because after much wrangling and sighing and haven't we got ANYTHING left at all, she quietly slipped out the front door to return an hour later fully laden with basic essentials and a few goodies as well. A true family hero was greeted on her return, with various grunts from the children and a mumble from me of "did you buy me any chocolate?" (she had).

The infamous last night of the year (New Years Eve) was spent almost in the most perfect way possible, phone calls from the eldest every 90 minutes to tell me that she was still "FINE MOTHER"  The boys were bathed early with vast amounts of their new smellies and nice and settled and the evening was spent in various positions snuggled on the sofa wishing all the friends and family a Happy New Year via facebook, twitter and text, while laughing at some of the horrifically embarrassing images being posted all over the net, even before the clock has reached midnight.

I can honestly say I am as ready for 2014 as I have ever been ready for any new year but I did have a quick wonder what 2054 will be like and whether I will see it, being as that will be my 80th year as apposed to this one being my 40th :-) HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone :-)

Is it still alright to eat chocolate for breakfast on boxing day?

I can't believe I managed to come down with a tummy bug on Christmas Day so while I could help make dinner I couldn't actually enjoy it.  That aside, Christmas day with 3 children is always an event and yesterday was no exception. I eventually got to bed at around the 1.30am mark on Christmas Eve which considering the last one down wasn't until 10pm wasn't too bad going (we do all the kids presents wrapping Christmas Eve, mad I know, but that's just the way we do it). I knew I was going to be a tired puppy when the morning roll call was made (Hubbie went to bed at 3am, the mad man still hadn't wrapped my pressies which I told him not to worry about but he wouldn't listen).

Funnily enough it wasn't the kids that woke up first it was me, they follow within seconds though.  Both the 6 year old and the 2 year old completely missed the large sacks of presents that had been left at the end of their beds and both ran in to Daddy saying "its Christmas".  This awoke the 4th member of the family and that left only one more to go.  The one none of us had the guts to approach but having now been shown the large sacks of pressies the boys were busting to start cracking in to them.  We sent in the bravest one of us, Ninja the 6 year old and he within in seconds of entering the room of doom he reappeared with a a cry of triumph "she's awake". Right member number 5 was with us and now we were all present and correct. The unwrapping could begin...............

I was determined this year to make the present unwrapping stretch beyond the first hour of Christmas day so the cries of I'm bored at 4pm could be quelled in an instant and failed miserably.  Eldest child was handed her admittedly small sack but still chocked full of expensive presents ( I mean a £25 itune voucher neither takes much wrapping or much space in the sack) and the look of "is that it" was completely apparent on her face, but she did her best to stem the flow of large present envy and participate in her younger brothers presents. The boys got to work and with in minutes things weren't going well at all. What is it about "wanting what someone else has got" the pair of them were like dogs fighting over two bones and no matter how many presents they got the same or how they'd just opened something they really really wanted they still wanted what the other one had just unwrapped.  I think I had to walk out the room at least twice and we stopped filming the scene for fear we might have to put an age appropriate rating on it to view it again. So carnage ensued and I kept my hands over my eyes until the last of ripping paper was heard. What greeted me upon opening them were three grumpy looking kids, lots of bits of paper, some damaged (and obviously fought over) boxes and I swore once again to myself that next year things would be different.

We decided to do dinner early as the thought of waiting until the evening to start preparing, cooking and clearing up didn't really appeal to either of us and the fact we were just the 5 of us we had no one to answer to and no one to go out to (bliss).  We did a fabulous job on our turkey, making it tasty and moist and managed to only forget one element to the meal (the stuffing) but I just started feeling gradually more and more rough as the cooking progress went on till eventually when it got to the table at 2pm I could barely hold my fork.  It looked so gorgeous and it tasted wonderful to I just couldn't eat it. How depressing is that then !!

So most of the rest of the day I spent with hubbie clearing up the dinner I wanted but couldn't eat and then lying on the sofa dosing and feeling sick.  Oh in between sorting out WW3 disputes between the reds, having an argument with 13 year old because she threw a tantrum that she didn't get exactly what she wanted and trying to make sure hubbie had as good a Christmas as possible.

Possibly the lowest point of the day came when hubbie turned to me and said "its not all its cracked up to be,is it? this Christmas lark" and the funniest came when Ninja said "my psp was my favourite present" and I rather smartly replied "that Santa is a clever one isn't he" and Ninja came back with "I think you and daddy bought me it and all my other presents, Santa's not really real, oh never mind". Which left me and daddy speechless, and amused that once again you can't pull the wool over that child's eyes.

I also just want to say a quick congratulations to my very good friend who informed me she was preggers...!! Love you loads girlie xx