Christmas Day
I woke suddenly this morning, and took a few moments to gather my senses. I could hear Lady Gaga coming from the children's bedroom, singing “Bad Romance”. After a few moments pieces of the puzzle fell into placethe alarm clock.My other half rolled towards me and mumbled something about expecting the children to have woken earlier, and something about forcing them to stay in bed at least until the alarm went off.
Given the marathon round of obligations we have pushed ourselves through over the last few days, the children would have slept longer.We could probably have got away with another hour or two's sleep.
I slid out of bed, and fetched the camera. The chances to record Christmas mornings are growing more scarce as the years roll by, and they grow upnot that it stopped me sitting on the end of our eldest's bed with the camera, snapping photos while she unwrapped her stocking. You can tell she's getting olderthe alarm in the next room hadn't woken her; I wandered into her room and said good morning to her, and pointed at the bulging stocking hanging on the door handle. There was a comical couple of second delay before the penny dropped, and she woke like somebody had thrown a power switch.
After an hour enforced delay, we finally made it downstairs at 7am. Miss eight made it from the bedroom to the living room at about the limit allowed by any form of plausible physics. I'm still not sure how she makes it around the various corners en-route without having some sort of spectacular accident.
Fast forward another hour and I found myself standing in the cold, outside, watching two little girls show off their new roller skates and scooters. Imagine “Crazy Legs Crane” on wheels, with windmilling arms, and lots of giggling, and you get some idea.
The rest of the day was spent first racing to get through breakfast, then racing to pack the car, travelling to W's parents, and then slowing things down to have lunch and dinner with them. Once again I couldn't be more thankful of not having to deal with Christmas Lunchwe took a few small presents with us, but they really didn't equal feeding us lot.
Funniest moment of the day was watching my Brother In Law launch his radio controlled model helicopter, and watch it slowly fly straight over next door's fence before diving into their garden.
This evening we drove back through the dark and freezing fog towards home, and arrived with three very tired charges. They all went to bed with little or no complaint, and will hopefully give us a couple of hours more sleep tomorrow.