Merry Christmas. ….2024

Awww I wrote this in 2018 - my first Christmas living back in England and not knowing if I was going to stay - but here I am still firmly anchored on the River Arun. It’s Christmas Eve again and I a counting my blessings - a warm home (sometimes too warm), a loving family, food glorious food and I’ve made good friends here. A lot to be thankful for! I’ve eaten several ‘Christmas dinners’ already and enjoyed some lovely celebrations with friends I didn’t know six years ago when the piece below was written. Truth be told, I was homesick for SA and quite lonely - my first Christmas in the UK was very different but l realised today that this festive season has been busy and a happy one. I have lunched with my retired business ladies group, we have dined with our local river association, I have enjoyed festive fare with the neighbours and had a jolly day in London riding through the Christmas lights in an open top bus! We entertained our local pub friends and had a lovely meal with our two special friends! Today is a family day  and I am cooking Christmas dinner and tomorrow we are at a country pub for lunch and morris dancing - so life is good and this Christmas is as different again from my first for many years back ‘home’. Next week we will be packing for our holiday in SA and a lovely catch up with friends and family there under blue skies. No white Christmas here despite a promise of one - its grey, mild and damp but Christmas lights are twinkling all around and there is peace on the river! Merry Christmas 🎄 

2018 ——— Its Christmas Eve and it’s not going to be a white Christmas - it’s a Silent Night on the river and more than merry and bright this Christmas Eve has been blue skies and sunshine! It's different - as is Christmas every year these days. No big plans and no expectations and there is peace on earth - well in my little patch of W Sussex. I have a modest Christmas tree a BIG bowl of yellow and white roses, several candles and embarrassingly many more Christmas cards than I have sent. I have a tin of Quality Street and a selection of Christmas Schmaltz to watch and a lovely person to share it all with!
Christmas has been different for me anyway since 1995 when we lost our lovely son, Craig. Knowing that nothing would ever be the same again we just started doing things differently. We spent the first year in Capetown and Julia my sister came out to spend Christmas with us and then got engaged to Tom (now our brother in law) at The Town Lodge in Belville on Christmas Day. The following years coincided with the boys being overseas or travelling so Christmas became about collecting them from airports and celebrating as a family on Christmas Eve in a very grown up way, as we accommodated their commitment to in laws and outlaws! Although we mostly managed to touch sides on Christmas Day too. Christmas became phone calls to China and Argentina - where one year I learned Mark had spent Christmas Eve in the maternity unit as there was no room at the inn or bed in the men's medical ward! He passed a kidney stone!  Then grandchildren came along and Christmas was once again magical!

Looking at my simple little tree, its hard to imagine that I decked the house from head to toe and decorated at least four themed trees - and when The Christmas Shop was in full throttle - I had 200 plus people tramping though my house to raise funds for charity, winning the best tree on display for several years! Victorian trees, Vintage trees, Nutcracker Ballet trees, Woodland trees, Children's Trees, Merry Berry trees -  you name it - I have done it - with matching table decor and a fir tree in the garden that needed an extra set of lights each year to accommodate its growth! Ho Ho Ho!
Christmas Eve was spent cooking and preparing a feast either at our place or at Blue Horizon Bay - I have little to do this year as I have been invited to share Christmas with my beloved's family and our contribution is Christmas pud and Christmas Crackers so that's easy peasy - thanks to Tesco and Lidl there will be a Christmas pud tasting competition. We are hosting a very small festive cheese and wine here later but that is also effortless - lucky me!
Gifts.... I have in the past wrapped countless gifts! Tony was the chief organiser of the Ford Christmas Party and Children's party so for years I wrapped hundreds of gifts for 'Santa' to give to Ford children. We have assembled garages, bikes and various action man accessories on Christmas eve and I once knit an action man wardrobe with miniature fairisle jumpers. There was much emergency wrapping on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning saw the house strewn with bright paper.  As the boys got older the gifts got smaller and more expensive culminating in a designer Allessi corkscrew for the man who has everything (Mark) - given with the tag reading 'the most expensive screw you will ever have!
This year my gift list was small wrapped with two rolls of paper with some to spare! I do however have parcels arriving every day and a small pile of gifts to be taken home for Jess and Craig - Jessica chose hers online from the other side of the world and popped them in my online shopping basket. How times have changed.
Traditional or not - Christmas is different every year but still enjoyable. I am more than happy as I type this and looking forward to tomorrow with that little piece of my heart that holds on to a belief that there is a Santa Clause and that there will be peace on earth! Merry Christmas xxx