At the Finnish Church. Finally got here after a morning of trying to get everything done but failing obviously.
Up early to wrap the mountain of presents which took ages. The only other thing I ticked off was preparing the trifle. T and B helped by cooking a couple of accompaniments - cranberry sauce and cauliflower cheese. No joy on their car key saga.
Arrived at the church in good time and parked in our booked slot round the corner. Met the rest of the party - niece E, and sister S and family. We sat and listened to the service while waiting to be called upstairs for dinner.
We found our table and queued for the buffet. I had a hissy fit as Dave didn't join the queue with us so wasn't ready for the pre-tuck-in group photo annoyingly. The bottle of red wine we opened soon calmed me down and he wasn't that long after.
Usual good spread of salmon and herring, ham for the meat eaters, salads and vegetable casseroles. Followed by Finnish star pastries (joulutortti) and tea/coffee.
Headed home to get stuck into the rest of the tick list - tidying and final cleaning and also making the crackers. That's when I realised I'd bought normal filled ones by mistake. They were surprisingly easy to open up and insert my personalised presents.
Eventually we sat down in front of Mortimer and Whitehouse Gone Fishing Christmas special with mulled wine and assorted nibbles. Absolutely zonked, I started falling asleep before it had finished.
Lovely smile all round. I've known your actual name for a while but haven't used it as I assumed there was a reason that it wasn't widely known but if you are ok with it, I'll start to use it.
Ian