Christmas at ours

This year we had Christmas dinner at our place. As usual we went to Trish and John's place for cake, champagne and presents after breakfast. Louka scored stacks of clothes, but the biggest hit was the woodwork dinosaur kit, which she was very eager to start putting together on the spot.

Then to Clara and Michael's for barbecue lunch. Louka and Amber played together, leaving the adults to chat for a while.

After lunch (nearly 4 o'clock) we headed home to prepare dinner for us, Trish and John, Mick, Dave, Elin, Lindsay and Max. Louka fell asleep on the way home, and woke rather cranky until she realised she was at home and could start on the dinosaur kit. So Graham helped her glue a velociraptor together while I prepared food.

We had a "kids" table separate from the grown-ups, which was good when hilarity ensued over the "robotic bugs" from their crackers. We'd made grilled marinated salmon, chicken wings, mango tomato salad, potato salad, avocado salad and cherry-mango-chocolate ice-cream. Mick's family brought a ham, prawns and a green salad, John brought wine and Trish brought the pudding, so there was a lot of different food! And despite starting dinner at a reasonable hour, about 7 o'clock, it was late before we got to bed.

In the morning Mick, Dave and Max headed for the beach, and it promptly began to rain. It didn't send them racing back, but they did get home before Louka woke up. Then we had mangoes, croissants and coffee for breakfast before the visitors headed home.