Christmas didn’t start quite as early as it has done in the past… unless you count Ollie coming into the bedroom at 3am to say that Santa had been!  He went back to bed and straight back to sleep though.  When it was ACTUALLY morning, we all went into Ollie’s room and the boys got stuck into the sacks that Santa brought.

When the boys were done going through their Santa sacks (which included pyjamas, boxers, socks, sweets, books, art things, games) we made our way downstairs to open the rest of our gifts.

This year we had a super top secret surprise present for each of the boys that was not under the tree.  We got them each an iPod Touch and hid them under breakfast cereal and called them into the dining room.  Ollie was the first to discover his… but there was also confusion on their faces followed by much excitement.

After all the presents were opened, I made breakfast (the real breakfast that was not cheerios) which consisted of scrambled eggs, smoked salmon and potato bread.

As is the tradition now, we all got ready to go and visit James family at his Mum’s house.  The boys got dressed in gorgeous new Christmas shirts (this might be the last year I get away with dressing them the same!) and off we went.  Christmas morning at his Mum’s is full of snacks and chatting and the boys run around crazy with their two cousins.

This year I planned the dinner out properly so that the turkey was almost cooked when we got home.  Most years I don’t start dinner until we are back but it leaves little time in the day to do much else.  This year was a lot more relaxed.

The boys had a ton of fun pulling the crackers and dinner was delicious.  I’d made ham the day before and this year had homemade stuffing too.  We didn’t have desert because we were too full after dinner so we sat in the living room and snuggled together watching Christmas tv while James slept.

Later in the evening, my family came round.  We had another big round of opening presents with the boys and drank shloer, mulled wine and ate mince pies.  Ollie was so surprised to see that Grandma and Grandpa had bought him a lovely half size guitar complete with everything he needed to get started learning.  Nate got a big remote control truck.  It was a lovely way to get the evening in before the boys went to bed.