Festive Fun

Christmas can be one of the most stressful times of the year! 'A la Casa Gran's' it was bursting at the seams this year. Due to heavy commitments on Christmas Day, the family agreed that we would meet a couple of days later.

After negotiating the 'Wish List' for Secret Santa - successfully I must stress, gifts were bought, wrapped in the same style wrapping paper for all members of the family and duly placed under the tree. This year we had 9 adults and 2 children in attendance on 29th.

The boys decided to take over the cooking, and what was planned for a lunch became a late afternoon brunch/tea. To be fair, the boys were excellent cooks, but a huge mountain of sprouts, carrots, red cabbage and potatoes to clean, prepare and cook (enough to feed an army - or two!) did take longer than anticipated.

Cramming 12 around a table (even when extended) which was supposed to seat 8 was ... 'interesting', and a variety of stools, spare chairs and a high chair were finally successfully placed, and lunch proceeded without much ado. A family recipe for 'Jamaican Christmas Pudding', a chocolate cherry torte and lemon cheesecake all vied for attention to be tried and tested and squeezed into the tiny gap left after the main meal.

Presents exchanged took some time and the additional 'assistance' of a tiny bod who enjoyed the chaos of paper, laughter, teasing and running around with torn wrapping paper

left the lounge looking like the recycling tip!

A relatively new 'tradition' is a sort of 'Secret Santa', where different members of the family buy and anonymously wrap a gift which could be 'naughty' or nice'. There is always hilarity when the older parents select a gift which is greeted with shouts of 'noooo!' and the the gales of laughter as they reveal the 'gift' (which they may well not know what it is used for - thus creating further hilarity). The evening finishes with family games - a tradition which is welcomed by all. This year's highlight was a game which involved drawing something, passing the picture on and the next person guessing what it is, the next person then draws the 'guessed' answer; there were definitely some interesting interpretations which caused further hilarity.

I believe that being with family, family participation and enjoyment is such an important part of Christmas. What was very interesting was .... the telly did not get turned on once!

Retire-a-Gran