galadriel1010 | Merry Christmas!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas or alternative celebration. We had a wonderful Christmas, and it went .

We had a few days of CLEAN ALL THE THINGS and shoving people out of the room to wrap the last few presents. I didn't have to make mince pies because we went to Home Bargains and bought 30 for £1 (which is extra awesome because I make terrible pastry). The tree went up on Tuesday looking all shiny and sparkly and pretty.

On Christmas Eve we finished off the kitchen and the shopping, and then had our annual session of sitting around with nothing to do for several hours. We went to the pub in my grandma's village, where we met up with some of my dad's old school friends for a drink and a chat. Mum and I had to leave that after about an hour and get down to church for midnight mass. The service was wonderful; it wasn't as full as nine lessons and carols, which is unusual, but it was really lovely and we did all the good carols, including O Come All Ye Faithful with the seventh verse. O Come is absolutely my favourite carol, and I normally only get two chances to do the last verse.

This year I only got one, though. Mum woke up on Christmas morning with a hangover and went back to bed, so we missed Christmas morning eucharist :( This did mean a lie in for all of us apart from my dad, who was cooking dinner and had to get the turkey in the oven at 8.30.

He went to get my grandma at about eleven thirty, and when she got there we sat down to presents! I got to play Santa and distribute them as usual, and my hips seized up, as usual. I got Mum the New Avengers box set, a set of Fred Dibnah DVDs for my dad, a couple of coffee table books for my grandma and a pair of Irish coffee glasses for Rick and Jen. My haul included two of the Sims games I was missing from Rick and the last one from

laligin (along with a shitton of sparkles. My family were highly amused by the boobytrapping there.) I also got the Sherlock Holmes movie, Shrek 4, Pirates of the Caribbean 4, the new Sherlock Holmes novel, the new Pratchett novel, a pastry recipe book and a bottle of vanilla liqueur.

Christmas dinner was all the nom and ALL THE FOOD, as is right and proper. Doctor Who wasn't the best, Michael McIntyre was hilarious, and I got to wear a pretty dress :D

Boxing day was its usual vegetative state, and I got to watch Top Gear on Dave and get quite a lot of writing out and eating in. We had a buffet of lots of nibbles, and I nearly exploded.

Today I was hoping that we'd get to go and see my Dad's family on the Wirral, but they fail at communication, so I'll do more writing. I have so many comments to reply to, but I really hate doing it from this computer (but not as much as I hate LJ coding. The keyboard and touchpad are fine, it's just not being able to see enough of the screen that makes it difficult to the point of irritation.) Sounds like I'm about to go to Tesco with Mum, and then make bread and butter pudding later. Tomorrow my dad is going walking, the rest of us might be going to see Mum's aunt and uncle and I'm hoping for a bit of retail therapy along the way.

And hopefully I'll be back in York with

laligin by the end of the week, but as that's reliant on my parents giving me a lift... who knows *sadface*.

I promise I will reply to comments as soon as I can. As I did at this time last year, I'm trying to rush out entries to fill another bingo between the TV and the eating. I have 4 days to write 14 entries though. Will do some memes in the new year.

Hugs and love to everyone