So that was Christmas...

Weeks of planning, days of anticipation and then suddenly - it's gone! So what was successful this year and what wasn't?

We had a good Christmas. The first success was choosing to spend Christmas Eve at the pantomime at Theatr Mwldan in Cardigan. Puss in Boots, an amateur production, three hours long (with a ten minute interval during which some audience members were able to flee) but a delight from start to finish (if not always for the right reasons). Puss herself was great, a proper actress. Jack was a little self conscious (H7: Mummy why is Jack a girl?) and there were a couple of sulky teenage cast members seemingly dragged off the street against their will. And there was a very good baddie. He was so good at being bad that he often couldn't perform his lines to all the booing and hissing from the audience. At one point they did the Timewarp from Rocky Horror, complete with basques and stockings. We boggled. But it got rid of an afternoon otherwise spent at home with over excited bickering children and we're going to do it again next year.

Food wise this year we did pork cooked overnight for 12 hours following Jamie Oliver's recipe. It was delicious. The meat was meltingly tender and it was so much easier than having to spend hours in the kitchen on Christmas day. Dessert was sticky toffee pudding (M&S) and a Duchy Originals Christmas pudding which we had been given and turned out to be delicious (although I've never seen a pud drink so much brandy. I flamed it, but the pud drank all the brandy before I could get it to the table! No wonder it tasted so nice...)

Best kids' presents? Bath Bomb Factory and Luxury Soap Science, both from Father Christmas, made two children very happy having created a bath bomb and some soap shapes before lunch. Also Cella Sticker and Magnet makers, as recommended by Silverpebble. These were a huge hit, again with both adults and children. Simple, durable and refillable. We now have stickers everywhere! Other well received things for two girls aged seven and six were: Paddington and Water Horse audio books, Paddington and Olga da Polga reading books (a real Michael Bond Christmas this one!), handwriting pens and paper.

They didn't get everything they asked for which led to anxious parental moments, but it didn't matter. I think that sometimes before Christmas children are bombarded with so many advertisements of 'must haves' that they get overwhelmed. Mine had a day of asking for iPods, laptops and mobile phones, but in the end they were happiest with the simplest things (like a pen, piece of paper and their imagination).

Another hit was Rapidough where you have to guess what your team mate is modelling out of dough before the other team guesses theirs. If you don't guess quick enough the other team takes away chunks of your dough, until the loser runs out. Brilliant fun. It's supposed to be for eights and over, but R6 just about managed (with a bit of a sulk every time the other team took our dough!)

What wasn't successful? Firstly Brian working on Christmas Day. It was only half a shift, plus an hour's commute either way, but it meant we couldn't just relax and let our hair down. There was a deadline and Christmas Day shouldn't have deadlines. Then there was the electric kettle which died on Christmas Day (we weren't sad; none of us liked it) and thirdly the flare up of my old war wound necessitating too many pain killers, no running (except for the odd two and a half miler, which isn't nearly enough) and a visit to the doctor on January 5th (exactly the same as last year. Winter doesn't agree with me.)

So that's it for another year. Phew.