I’m sort of on a wind down from Christmas at the moment. It was a quiet Christmas but one I really enjoyed with my family. I drove home on the 23rd and heard ‘Driving home for Christmas’ (one of my favourite Christmas songs) just before I reached my destination. I spent Saturday evening catching up with my Mum and wrapping the rest of the presents. I really enjoy wrapping gifts and making labels for presents. I was sort of a make and do maniac (Mary Fitzgerald was my hero) when I was a kid and maybe a bit of that still lingers on and escapes every now and then. My sister came home on the 24th and we ended up sharing a room over Christmas because my parents are redecorating parts of the house and our bedrooms are now ‘storage rooms’. We haven’t shared a room since we were kids (I was eight and she was twelve). Back then it wasn’t the most amicable arrangement, she got up one night and moved into the spare room citing my messiness as her reason for leaving. Needless to say we have had separate rooms since then.

Mum and I made some desserts to take to my Aunt’s house on Christmas Day. We spend Christmas Day with my Mum’s sister and her family and Christmas Day isn’t really Christmas Day without four desserts. I made space in my parent’s fridge, for storing the desserts overnight, by removing the old out of date products such as a jar of beetroot best eaten before 2004 and a bottle of salad cream that has been out of date since March 2002. It scares me that my parents never seem to look at the best before dates on food products. My sister and I exchanged presents with Mum and Dad on Christmas Eve. We usually do it on Christmas morning after mass but it is always a bit rushed before we head to West Cork. This year it was lovely and relaxing, pulling things out from under the Christmas tree and passing them out. We headed to my Aunt’s house the following morning after mass and the drive seemed very short because my sister and I spent the whole time singing along to her new Nina Simone CD. When we got to my Aunt’s house we all exchanged gifts before dinner. I got some lovely presents the cutest of which was a Microwaveable Beddy Buddy. It looks like a teddy bear but it is filled with lavender and you put it in a microwave for two minutes before putting it on the back of your neck to aid relaxation. I tried it out last night while watching TV and it works a treat.

The Christmas dinner was delicious and everyone had fun pulling the Christmas crackers. My favourite Christmas cracker joke was ‘Q: What do you call a boomerang that doesn’t come back? – A: a stick’, trust me at the time it was very funny. We got a phone call from my brother who is living in Australia at the moment. I think the phone was passed around to everyone in the extended family bar the dogs! It was great to hear from him and to know that he was having a good Christmas too. After dinner most of us drove to a nearby beach for a walk with the two dogs. One of the dogs (Polly) is just a puppy and had never been on a beach before so it was funny to see her reaction to the sand. She was a bit sceptical at first but in no time at all she was following the other dog around the place. It was quite dark on the beach and because Polly’s coat is a beige colour it was hard to see her running around – talk about blending in with the background! When we got back to the house we were greeted by the smell of mulled wine. In our absence one of the cousins that had stayed behind had made a big vat of the most aromatic mulled wine. Once a couple of glasses of this had been consumed a box of scrabble was unearthed and a lively game ensued. It’s funny how quickly competitiveness can creep into a friendly game of scrabble, some teams were thriving for the best words, some teams were aiming for the highest points while the rest of us were just enjoying the game.

All too soon it was time to go home so we gathered up our various bit and pieces and piled into the car. We got home in time to catch the end of Love Actually which I never seem to tire of watching. In the past I’ve been a bit of a bah humbug person when it comes to Christmas but gradually as each year passes I seem to get more Christmas spirit. This year has definitely been a really nice relaxing Christmas and one that I have enjoyed a lot.