The day before...
I guess a good chunk of us are starting to gear up for the big event tomorrow! Lots of cooking and gift preparations to be done. No gigantic travel to Australia and dealing with jet-lag this year... which is a mixed blessing! I don't miss the travel, but it would have been nice to see the extended family again. It has been quite a long time.
It has been a bit of an adventure over the last few days. My wife and I were prepared for our own kids... getting presents ready for them over the Sinterklaas period, and now Christmas as well. Planning it all out to drip feed presents... and that includes the two kiddie birthdays that fall within the same season as well! Thank goodness we don't celebrate the Three Kings!
All of this still needs to be done in some conspiratorial secrecy as our older girl still believes in the magic! So... some middle of the night runs to the shed and garage to pick up bits and pieces and to make sure that everything is all out of sight again in the morning.
The last couple of days was making sure that we had all the food ready for a little gathering of families (less than 12 people according to the Coronavirus rules) that we have with another family who are also far from their extended family. We always prepare the desserts... and my wife had some new ideas about what to bring! There have been several ideas this year... Yule log, Sticky Date pudding... and some sort of Chocolate pudding. Plus there is also a Fruit Cake that is currently being fed full of brandy!
Of course, only two of these desserts will make the cut to be taken to the gathering... the others will fill our stomachs between now and New Years! Or if they fail completely, will grace the bin as the sometimes "bin cake" that my wife sometimes makes. We might not even get to taste it...
The last couple of days was a nightmare... I was out and about racing from shop to shop looking for the new toilet paper. CHRISTMAS WRAPPING PAPER! I should have thought about this... with most of the shops closed, it is next to impossible to get this at the physical shops that are open... mostly food and supermarkets! Online, it is even worse... with deliveries out to New Year and stocks completely gone for wrapping paper. Oh well, worst comes to worst, the presents will just have to go into the sack with no wrapping!
So, tonight will be the big wrapping of presents for the kids... always a late night, and even later now that our older one has a habit of staying up later in the holidays to watch a movie! ... and then my wife will decide that the best time to start making desserts will be after midnight...
... when we definitely have the entire morning tomorrow to do it! So, I will probably go to bed guiltily around midnight or soon afterwards.... as I'm really not very good with limited sleep, and I need to have my wittiest banter for the gathering!
Anyway, Merry Christmas to everyone... and special thoughts to all the parents frantically getting the last preparations under way! There is nothing more heartwarming than seeing your kids over the moon with happiness!
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