With Love at Christmas

I absolutely love Christmas.

The very best thing is spending time with my family and friends. This year has been great. Our tree went up with no stress or tears which in previous years has not always been the case. A few years ago it was so stressful with baby twins and a seven and five year old, I completely lost the plot and kicked a fully decorated tree up in the air!

So whats been going on in the Mason house in the lead up to christmas this year? Well it was a good start with me offering to be the elf at our annual Christmas fayre at school. Poppy and Tom thought this was fab although it was definitely Rosie’s worst nightmare, but it was great to see all the children’s faces, really magical and I feel very honoured to have spent the afternoon with Santa!

This year I have made a Christmas cake and some Christmas chutney with my Mum, that I have to say was lovely and has already gone, I’ll let you know the recipe. Rosie is very crafty and having watched Kirsty Allsop’s home made home we decided to make some Christmas decorations, we felt very proud of ourselves.

The twins were on stage at our local church in their school nativity. They did really well although it didn’t seem like two minutes since we were the ones struggling with crying babies while watching the older two on stage. This year was very peaceful and we didn’t come out sweating with sweets stuck in our hair.

When I was told the twins were Kings I won’t lie I had been hoping for an angel. Is it just me or do we all hope for our girls to be Angels?, all angelic with a tinsel halo. I even wondered if any one would notice a discreet pair of wings on a kings back, but as it happened it worked out really well as my niece is in the same class and they are all very close. They made three very cute Kings and it was a very strategic move to keep them all together and prevent any tears.

I shall never forget when Jack did his first nativity and I got the letter it read “Dear Mrs Mason this year your son is an Ass” I swear this could not be more fitting as he is our Jack Ass.

After my initial panic all the shopping got done early. Every year I panic and think this year won’t be as good as the last, but once you start to look there is so much out there it just takes a bit of imagination and for the first time in eleven years all four kids were at school. The joys of shopping alone, although I do miss the pushchair for bags and the odd sit down, but the pros definitely out weigh the cons!

The kids decided they would dress Maisie our dog up as Santa Paws in an old Santa suit (not the special dog ones). It involved a lot of wrapping round and knots to get it to stay in place, very sweet until they forgot, got bored and let her out in the garden only for her to reappear with a very wet under carriage and some go faster mud stripes.

Well here we are on Christmas Eve, Andrew has finished work and we are all together, the Snowman is on the TV this afternoon and I never get bored of it. So we will be eating copious amounts of chocolate and getting ready for the arrival of Santa.

I hope you all have a wonderful, peaceful and very Merry Christmas and a happy healthy New Year.

Helen xx