A Family Christmas!

Christmas this year became another event we had to 'get through' and for the last two months we wondered what we would do to make Christmas as painless as possible as we knew that no matter what we did John's absence would be keenly felt..... We briefly toyed with the idea of going away to a hotel but thought that might be a little too festive, renting a house but dismissed that also and decided to leave the decision to Mum and Dad and we would row in with whatever they wished to do but that no matter what we would all celebrate together...

Eventually they agreed that everyone would come to our house.... We have plenty of room and it would be good to have a break from the usual Christmas Day routine. It turned out great.... We had 8 adults , 4 big kids and 3 little kids....


It was nice to have a relaxed Christmas Eve and for us to have a break from the Christmas Day travelling we usually do in order to visit both sides of the family..... Everyone pitched in with dinner preparations and Santa knew who extra to include on his visit to our house this year!!!

Elena was helping her sister Darrelle and cousin Lauren to make a fresh fruit salad (below) and was not happy when the juice from the mandarins kept squirting into her eyes so soomebody had the bright idea of how to solve her dilemma!!!

Not often we are organised enough before Mass to be able to have time for a game of basketball beforehand but because we were late for one Mass we decided to wait for the next one ~ hence a bit of breathing space for everyone....

Dad, Aidan and Mum waiting for more toast!!

They get very tired in this house of the refrain 'Mother knows best....!!!!!!!!! BUT......

Even Declan conceded on Christmas Day that it had been a good idea to keep our old table which he had wanted to throw on the skip last year when we were moving house...it is now in an upstairs playroom and comes in very handy for projects, painting, art work and anyting else messy.... and ... it was great to have enough space to seat 15 people easily for Christmas Dinner...

Although our memories of John are very raw and many Christmas songs too painful to listen to without breaking down we drew support from each other and from being together.... the kids were a welcome distraction and we all had a real enjoyable time...Thanks to Skype we were able to 'visit' with the only family member too far away to travel to be with us and it was nice for everyone to chat with Alfred, Michelle and the little ones Aidan, Ciarán and Moya in Boston...