A Fabulous Christmas 2018

I thought I would just take a moment to share just our Christmas as it has been such a magnificent time. You may ask why magnificent?

My answer being: I took the opportunity to have a nice lengthy space of time off over the Christmas period, as one work contract ended and the next one starts tomorrow, that’s how lucky I have been!

I have been part of Dylan’s end of term activities. The greatest highlight being his performance as the lead singer in his rock band ‘The Rocking Flossers’. This is an activity led by Rock Steady Music School, supported by the school, when children sign up to learn an instrument with the expectation to perform altogether as a band at the end of the term. Dylan was astoundingly brave as he stood in front of the whole school and was the only singer of his five piece band, as the band banged, strummed and tinkled their way through their rendition of ‘The Eye of the Tiger’. The impact on Dylan since is he has been in awe of singers when seen live, I shared with him you know where they started at Rock Steady Music School – publicly he isn’t convinced! Next term he wants to be signed up for keyboards NOT singing as it is his private pleasure.

Homemade gifts has always been an important part of our Christmas routine so to have the time to indulge, was exhausting, as whatever we do has to be done on an industrial scale. So we went into mass production of shortbread stars, testing our skills and mastered on Dylan’s teachers, to all of Dylan’s adult cousins their partners with aunts, uncles, grandparents and of course tester biscuits. In total Dylan partook in the creation of about 40 stars including the gluten-free option too. My goodness we were both fed up with shortbread once we were done although Dylan was delighted to be able to give a gift to everyone in his family. Reviews were "premier biscuits ever!"

We also made specifically for Dylan to give to his elder brother, a ‘light-catcher’ from acorn cups, marbles and crystal. This became a mass production of cleaning the collected acorn cups, drilling two holes per cup, paint spraying each cup and then construction. Of course the gift never stays at just one so this fiddly, finger crippling dialogue became more than one evening Jerry and I either end of the sofa messing around with acorns. Dylan assembled each light-catcher made and relished the giving, just need the sun to enjoy their beauty.

Thankfully visiting Santa is still an expected pursuit to be undertaken and timely as going too early in December was not acceptable. So far the most convincing Santa is when he visits Wicklewood. Santa enjoys a boy’s conversation without rushing him, accepting a star shortbread biscuit too.

We have had a pleasurable mix of time between catching up with the wider family and enjoying our own peaceful family time at home, either playing together or being in our own corners doing our own individual thing but together. The ‘Stones’ meet up at Stonebarn for a delightful breakfast hosted by Vanessa and Steven where we caught up with respective sisters, parents and mainly adult children, a bit subdued due to the lack of small children this year which we were all saddened by! Whereas the ‘Steggles’ gathered for an evening meal with respective brothers, we had a relaxed natter slipping into a mellow blather. Certainly savored the opportunity to get together with our much loved wider families at Christmas. We also ventured to our local church, St Andrews in Hingham, partaking in an evening Carol Service attended by all of the Hingham churches. The service, attended by approx 100 people, started with a Youtube recording of the Muppet rendition of the Nativity called  'Bethlehemian Rhapsody', brilliant and set the scene for an interesting service ending with a glass of the scummiest mulled wine.

Roger, Jerry, Glenn 

'Better halves' - Jenny, ME, Rachel

This has been our first Christmas in our home in Hingham. Adorned with a real tree with a beautiful shape and the whole room lit-up with many twinkling lights of multiple colours. All our collected (over the years) familiar decorations hung on the tree, Dylan took charge of the chocolates hence Milo struggled to find them!

Our Christmas Eve preparations continue to be around Santa coming to our home as he is still a real phenomenon and we regale as such, without doubt keeps Christmas sentiment perfect but we are all on our guard to make sure nothing slips to disenchant the illusion. Dylan shared his usual tray of Santa/Rudolph snacks and picture with a pleasurable Santa response. Dylan’s interests are history and has asked for gifts reflecting this interest, so Santa assembled Dylan’s prime gift to be a Playmobil castle. Fabulous idea but needed significant Christmas Eve preparation by Santa’s helper being 4+ hours of construction, getting to bed at 3am!! Worth every moment with the response Dylan conveyed.

Christmas Day was a delight of fun opening presents, playing and enjoying the presence of our old folk as they dipped in and out at their delectation. Jerry's next self-indulged challenge was to complete the 100 piece Brussels-sprout (double-sided) jigsaw taking a total of 6 hours of his Boxing Day life. Whilst Milo worked on Boxing Day we ventured a stomp across the fields, to which he came home with more cheese and sweets as he spent an 8 hour shift reducing groceries, we drowned in cheese! I did my bit constructing Lego ‘Bank Raid’ kit which I find gratifying, a hidden pleasure for me.

Stone tradition is going to the panto on Sandra & Kevin’s wedding anniversary, this year being their 55^th, they have been going to the panto for almost as many years, WOW! We savored Peter Pan at Lowestoft Theatre, really marvelous show making a first-rate afternoon together celebrating Ma & Pa’s day.

It felt privileged to get the young Steggles men and their ladies together in the same room for a couple hours over the duration too.

Brett & Milly, Rebecca & Milo, Fraser & Rosie

New Year’s Eve at Rocklands White Hart, bit different this year, was great pleasure with Roger & Rachel with Ness and Steven joining us in between Steven playing in the band Jacksback.

Wishing you a Happy New Year, make 2019 your own enjoying all that comes your way!

WE WILL :)