Merry Christmas!

At 5:45am I was woken by two little girls' shouts of "It's Christmaaaaaas" Noddy Holder style. At 5:50am I emerged bleary eyed and ready to experience the carnage of Christmas and now well into the evening I am ready to write about it. Boyfriend has firmly warmed his space in bed after having a pretty tiring day and me? Well, I just can't get enough tiramasu liqueur.

As soon as the living room door swung open it may as well have been an American Black Friday sale. Cries of "Santa's been!" and joyous smiles told me all I needed to know - every penny and moment of preparation was worth it. We unwrapped a mountain of dolls, two desks, two Furbies (that I haven't as of yet put in the microwave but have taken the batteries out of - just for tonight), a pink tablet, a white DS Lite, mass amounts of colouring pens, colouring books, clothes and sequins, books, Scooby Doo toys, tea sets, DVD's, chocolates and games and piled all the lovingly wrapped paper into bin bags. From us and their grandfather they'd done pretty well but with their aunt still to come it was excitement piled on top of excitement until they could barely even eat the painstakingly cooked dinner that had been in varying stages of concoction since 6am that morning. Alas, they did have an afternoon nap and headed up to bed early.

I kept myself awake with caffeinated drinks for the most part, dutifully tidied, built and helped with the how-to's while boyfriend had locked himself in the kitchen singing Rascal Flatts and Ed Sheeran while taking over the cooking. My sister popped by and lastly, my best friend who joined us for dinner and dog walking festivities to earn that slice of dessert. Luckily after some minor disasters like forgetting to make gravy with the drippings from the turkey and having to resort to good old Bisto dinner was gorgeous and filled a great big hole in all of us. I even had some gifts this year not including the handy three in one food processor my dad had bought us.

Christina had gone overboard. I'm hoping to take some photos to brag about how wonderful my best friend is (only kind of) but when she arrived with a big bow wrapped box stuffed to the brim with gifts and gold metallic shredded tinsel it was game over. I was in heaven. I absolutely love to give gifts, spend time thinking of them, buying them and wrapping them but receiving them when I don't receive many at Christmas? So exciting! I had some wonderful presents which is just a testament to how well she knows me as a person and I cannot thank her enough for every well-thought out and much valued present in that box from a palette of beautiful earthy an cranberry toned eyeshadows to the new coveted 'Snake Eyes' eye paint by NARS to a festive Yankee Candle set and a zombie apocalypse survival pouch - truly magical.

Once everyone had read The Gruffalo three times, cozied down in fresh pyjamas (after a bath with Snow Fairy, of course) it was time to grab a bowl of gateaux and cream and snuggle down to watch Doctor Who - The Time Of The Doctor. Now, for people who aren't a fan this must be the most boring thing on TV during Christmas but it's one of my favourites and I was desperate for it not to disappoint me. To say goodbye to Matt Smith, a high tie for my Doctor with Tenant was bittersweet and I felt the episode could have been so much more than it was but those final moments (no spoilers) had me in tears and Capaldi? Well, he's going to be phenomenal and I have every faith that wherever the show goes from here he'll pull it off like the Scottish accent he so proudly holds on to and those eyebrows.

Christmas has been a success but there are definitely things I will be doing differently in 2014...but I'll leave that for another post.

Merry Christmas or a Happy Whatever You Celebrate - I hope today was full of hope