Christmas in Churchstoke

I was woken at 7am by my mum's cheery "Happy Christmas" as she waltzed into my bedroom and announced it to be present-opening time. We all congregated in the lounge, some more awake than others, and proceeded to open our presents in turn.
Breakfast next and then off church by 10.30am. Grandad also came (which he never normally does, so that was very cool). Sang lots of carols (yay!) and was generally quite amused by my brother offending a lady in front of us (who had enough hair to completely obscure our view), and a man on the other side of church who chose to sit with a sheet draped over his face!

After church, Ben (brother) and I delivered a Christmas meal (made by a catering team at the church) to an elderly couple in town. We drove round for quite a while trying to find the right house (my brother's spatial skills seem to be no better than mine!), but found it eventually.

Went home and had a FEAST! The jokes and charades in our crackers amused us for quite some time - especially hilarious when Gran tried to act out 'Lord of the Rings'; she's quite often the source of amusement, harsh I know.
Then we retired to the lounge for more presents and the Queen's speech - which gran and grandad found incredibly interesting (see photographic evidence).

A couple of our neighbours came round in the evening - ate more food and had a good laugh...also watched the Vicar of Dibley (hooray for Geraldine and her man!).
After everyone had left, Bethan, Ben and I stayed up late chatting and eating Roses.
xx

Christmas north of the border

Good Day,

As yet there has been no snow (although the weather forecast says that we may get some tomorrow.)

Christmas started at the early hour of 9am when Tim and Lou woke up and decided that it was stocking time (we open our stockings first thing and leave our presents 'til after church) after that we all got ready and went to church - two streets away; a couple of people were wearing kilts but they probably make the pews even more uncomfortable to sit in!

The talk was on light and we sang lots of carols in interesting accents, there's nothing quite like Scots singing the last verse of In the Bleak!

We decided to have a light lunch and then have Christmas dinner at dinnertime so we opened our presents first; I got some new posh perfume, some books, lots of money, a maglite and other things.

After lunch we wrapped up warm then went for a brisk walk, it was so cold my face froze up (we have pictures but I can't get at them 'cos Lou forgot the USB cable)

A dinner of beef, Yorkshire pudding and Christmas pud followed, then we played scrabble (I won the first game with a total of about 220, yes I am a genius, and very lucky, using all 7 letters up on my last go with herpatic- something to do with herpes), yeah! I have to have some fun somehow as I have no friends and no where to go, the scrabble will probably be the highlight of the week!

Just before I went to bed I managed to break the cold tap in the bathroom, it wouldn't stop 'til my dad got up and fixed it! Oops!

See you at the weekend

Fran
xx

Christmas in the Land of Brum

Christmas Day in the Rose household always begins with Church, where four of us made up half of the music group! Having not played my flute for almost 3 months now, I almost collapsed after my descant in 'O Come, All Ye Faithful', being so out of puff! But thankfully, I recovered in time for Christmas lunch, pictured!

After lunch came presents, as my Dad and I were out-numbered, wanting to go for a walk before pressies!




I was very excited by a fluffy dressing gown, wellies and a map of the world :) We also got lots of boxes of Roses chocolates from various friends. It happens every year...Roses for Roses...very funny. But very yummy! :D

The rest of Christmas was spent trying to keep Oscar the cat from eating the leftovers, trying to win at the Game Cube (I always come last), playing Cranium (also came last, lol) and watching Vicar of Dibley, which was so funny! :D

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!!!! :D
See you at Lewis'.

Lots of love, Sairie xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Christmas Day in Frome

So...someone suggested we blogged our Christmas days' so here is the exciting installment from Frome!
Well finally we decided to break with a longstanding household tradition and lie in on Christmas morning!! Hurrah!! The girls in the house were thoroughly enjoying having a relaxed morning - the boys on the other hand were grumpy and moaning about how unfair it is they had to wait till after church to open presents! (imagine the sacrifice mum and i have made for the past gazillion years - waking up early and then trying to be excited and happy whilst opening presents - mornings are not a good time for either of us!)

Anyway we were a bit mean and ganged up on mum in church - heckling from the congregation as she started her sermon - "what signs are there that it's Christmas day?" - some kid shouts out "presents!" , mum says "yes thats right" we all shout back " Not in our house there's not!" then mum explains to the church that for the first time ever we've decided to wait until after church to open presents, so the whole congregation starts booing and hissing! Hilarious!!

So after the service had finsihed, and we'd thought about the signs that were around in the lead up to Jesus' birth, and how despite many of the signs pointing to a royal birth and a prince, Jesus' death where he wore a crown of thorns was what made Him the Saviour of this world, we went home and opened presents.

Dad as usual managed to guess every single one of his presents (though he did own up to having seen an email about his Hot Air Balloon trip by mistake, which is how he "guessed" it) I was the most suprised and shocked when on opening a present that appeared to be a dictionary, found an envelope with a Hot Air Balloon pass in it as well!! So dad and i are going on a flight in a big balloon sometime soon!!! How cool!

The rest of the day was spent eating, watching endless Christmas TV, doing dad's jigsaw puzzle and playing Uno (which for the first time ever mum actually won!!)

Hope you all had good Christmas's too.
The Hannah Lady
xxx

The run up to Christmas in Scotland

Firrrstly Aye wooood liike tae congratulate Miriam on her ceke beeking pro-ess, tha luuks liike a sound ceke.

The fog has chased me to Scotland and is currently sitting on the silvery Tay. I've been practising my scottish accent (only in the privacy on our home, in case I get beaten up) but Tim says it's not very good whilst refusing to do one himself.

As my old MP at home is Mark Oaten, and Mim's is Lembit Opik, my money is on the next parliamentary scandal involving either Lou's, Sarah's or Hannah's MP (or all three).

Tim (my bro) is sitting next to me and is almost as tall as me, unlike anyone else in this place; in church this morning it seemed like the only two people taller than me were my dad and grandad, yes, I'm a 5'7" giant!

Last week I spend my time wisely, wasting tax-payer's money on making 'Do Not Feed The Animals' signs for the fence round the paras' compound and creating an amazing revue. I think for the New Year weekend each house/ small friendship group should do a sketch/ revue item.

Merry Christmas, I hope you've all been good enough for Santa to visit this evening.

Fran (and Tim)
xx

Sponge success

Hip Hip HOORAY! I made my brother a birthday cake and it actually worked - yes, it rose to a magnificent height! Just look at the air in that sponge! Wonderful :)
I was so proud, my family didn't really understand my excitement, but then they haven't had to endure a countless number of dense sponges in the past!!

(This is the best photo of my cake, but not the best of my brother...sorry, cake wins!)