All set?

Is everyone set for Christmas,

• all the cards written and sent?
• all the presents purchased and wrapped?
• all the food brought to cook for the family?
• the drink for the party?

if the answer is no, you may be leaving it too late to have a restful Christmas time lead up... I am just waiting on one present to arrive, but I think I may not get it in time for Christmas so perhaps it can be a 12th Night gift for SOH.

I finish work tomorrow, hopefully not too late in the day, and then don't return to work until the 5th January 2009 so SOH and I are going to visit his family in the New Year (and hopefully watch a rugby game while we are there as well).

Before the big day itself, I have to make some more mince pies, a dundee cake and visit some relatives, luckily most of mine live locally and therefore we will spend Christmas Eve visiting them and taking their cards, particularly to Aunt Lil who also gets a present as my surrogate Mum, and it is usually a good day for all.

A couple of my traditions are :

to attend the village carol service at the local parish church, but we have the methodist and baptists churches attending as well and we will walk home afterwards just after midnight and hopefully it will be frosty and clear.

to have a glass of Jameson's Reserve in the memory of my Dad (who I brought it for in the first place only to find it unopened after he died in 2002) and of my Mum who died in 1992. It is a time to include the ghosts of christmases past, and to their memories.

Finally I can see that Christmas spirit rising...