The One With The White Christmas!

Well, as you will all know by now alot of effort went into getting home for Christmas, the question is was it worth it?

Answer, most definitely!

Our Christmas celebrations began in Saudi, this is far easier said than done! Luckily for us they had just celebrated Eid so there was plenty of tinsel and colourful decorations around. After spending very little we got to work on making the house as Christmassy as one can when the sun is blazing outside. Jason 'obtained' some Christmas music from the Internet, we managed to find all of the ingredients for mulled wine, bar the alcohol and we were set!

A few hours later and a lot of nauseating Christmas wailing to Band Aid and suchlike we had our own version of a little grotto!!! If you thought the travelling was a mission then you havent tried to get into the Christmas spirit respectfully in a Muslim country!

We were however still minus a tree. Now that is one thing you are certainly not going to find around here! Not unless you have a rather fantastic South African friend who has a little secret in her closet! A Christmas tree!!! And so graciously lent this to us for the forseable season!

So now we are set with our Christmassy house, we have somehow managed to do the present shopping with the kids, without them actually realising what we were up too, obviously the lack of red suit and sack put them off the scent. But what to do now eh? Normally we would go our for Christmas drinks, maybe the odd meal or party. Mmmmmm, not so much of that going on here, so we created our own.

Yes we had a little Christmas party, complete with mince pies, completely made from scratch, sausage rolls made with beef sausages, which are surprising the same in taste as pork!? We had plenty of mulled wine, non alcoholic of course, a chocolate log, Christmas music and most importantly guests!

It was fabulous! Arranging such a thing in the afternoon in the UK would probably nor be received with as much 'get up and go' as we had here. Maybe it's because we do have to make our own entertainment and are grateful for it and make the very most of it! I was overwhelmed with how it was accepted! We even had pressies, and that is ALWAYS a good thing! People had a nice red glow in their cheeks from the cinnamon and nutmeg and full tummies from the food, aside from falling out the door into a taxi and waking with a hangover it was just like a Christmas do in the UK, only this was better. We were from England, Wales, South Africa and Pakistan, and it was such a wonderful mix, and everyone seemed so relaxed, and as a hostess I was overjoyed!

Once we arrived in England, and more to the point to my Dad's house we had only 2 days to get anything else we wanted for Christmas and with the snow looking like it was going to cripple us any minute we had to go the day that we arrived! Oh yes a busy town centre after arriving at 4 am! I am sure the kids will be angels! LOL! Well all things considered they weren't too bad. First stop get the kids some coats! It was so bloody cold I thought I was going to be reported to social services taking the kids out dressed as they were poor little things! We went through the trauma of choosing a coat, which trust me didn't end at the checkout with Grace, we went back and forth with 3 different coats for her to go back to the first choice! I then continued to go off with the kids and Jason alone to pick up a few things for each other. This was relatively painless. But OMG we were tired! The rest of that day is a blur of exhaustion and wine!

As for the rest of the kid's pressies, well Lego decided to ahve an international shortage, and as our five year old had asked only for the whole Lego city we ahd to at least attempt to get something from his list! Thank God for E-bay and also the speed of the post, bearing in mind I am sure that will be the only time I ever say that! LOL!

Just Tesco's to face now! We wrote a list and did that child free, I was sure it would be traumatic enough going to a big supermarket 2 days before Christmas! At the checkout I nearly fainted at the price of things, I have acclimatised too much to Saudi prices to cope with the UK now I'm sure! but at least we were all done! Oh, that is apart from wrapping ALL the presents! Now you must understand I am a bit of a Monica when it comes to being organised! So for me to wrap this late on was a little traumatic! That's OK, a bottle of wine, or two (I can't remember, suggesting it may have been the two!) an aunt, a niece and a husband, job done!

Christmas Eve the kids were wildly excited we went to visit some very close friends, allowed the kids to trash their house in the midst their excitement and politely left! Exhausted and tired we bathed them, got them into their Christmas Eve pj's (which is always good as they look great for the Christmas photos!) and put them to bed!

So a nice relaxing Christmas Eve with my Aunt and my Dad, the two father Christmas' we had in the house dealt with the drink and mince pies left fro them, lol, and off to bed.

Now it must be a female thing because me and my Aunt were up at 6.30, staring rather impatiently at the presents. We continued to do this for an hour and half!!! The kids finally graced us with their presence at 8 am!!!! Surely this isn't right, I am sure I was tugging at my parent's quilt from 4am at a very early age!

The first thing they looked at was of course the pile of presents - which rather worryingly we were going to have to pack to fly home! Then they noticed the mince pies and beer, it is so magical to see a child's face when they realise that their fantasy of Santa Claus is true!

Paper everywhere, 2 very happy children, a happy grandad and aunty Val with their slippers, daddy with his school stationary and slippers of course and me, well loving watching my family and feeling the warmth of that bottle of sherry that is going down rather nicely at this point!

No cooking today either, that's Granddad's job! Wonderful!

I even got a 2 hour sleep in the afternoon! It must be Christmas!

The day was lush!

After Christmas, we visited more friends, going back to Wales was strange but nice, and also visited Nan and Grandad which I was very happy about, relationships are important for children and with our families especially where we have lost important people it is vital that the children get to build these relationships with all of their family!

Christmas for us this year was important, for us to have been so far away from our families and living in a new country we needed to feel the warmth of Christmas spirit.

Even though it was epxensive, it didn't matter, even though the journeys were somewhat traumatic and long, it didn't matter, it was a different kind of Christmas that we had but it didn't matter. What mattered to us most was to be with people we love and we were happy and healthy!