What's a Family Christmas without Some Chaos?

Well it's over for another year, I'm sad because this year we didn't have the big build-up to Christmas the way we usually do. We moved in to our new home 10 days before Christmas - I make that sound like an seamless, easy task. The truth is that we loaded at least a million boxes from the storage unit into a rented van, drove them 2 miles and dumped them into our garage. Then we repeated this procedure until the storage unit was empty and the garage was full.


No logistical expert could have foreseen the biting cold wind we had to endure, the numb fingers and toes and the empty stomach feeling you get when you realise you've forgotten to eat all day.
Still, we did it! Anyway amidst the 6' high piles of boxes lurked our Christmas decorations, tree, wreath, lights etc.


Normally we would have everything up and lit by the beginning of December but by the time we unearthed the majority of the boxes, it was the 22nd!
Undeterred, we found one set of lights and strung them on to the well-travelled tree and my daughter did the rest. It looked beautiful regardless of the rush to get it ready.





The big day went well, I put the turkey in the oven at 8am and spoke to family across the world via Facetime in between peeling veggies and making bread sauce.
Everything was going great until it was time to serve up. A stray glass of 7Up launched itself across the table causing a panic to mop it up before it wrecked the new floor. We ate the meal and thoroughly enjoyed it (apart from the parsnips ending up rather burnt). I then realised my mobile phone wasn't charging though it was plugged in, the charger suddenly decided to die on me. An hour or so later I could hear a weird clicking noise coming from the basement. No, it wasn't a squirrel, it was worse than that - it was the hot water tank! Easy fix, switch it off....


I then decided I could iron a few curtains upstairs before bedtime as they were hung in haste and looked like they'd just fallen out of the packaging - well they had! In fact when I brought them home, I had no idea where my iron was hiding in the garage box jungle. By bedtime I was aching and tired but happy and content that nothing worse had gone wrong on Christmas Day!


Although we were given the names and numbers of emergency call-out electricians etc. when we moved in, I just didn't have the heart to ring anyone on Christmas Day and drag them away from their family. Today, I have switched the water tank back on and will ring someone to come and hopefully fix it. Mind you, they would probably have been grateful for yesterday's call-out fee?


Happy Boxing Day and may it go smoother than yesterday.....