Hoovering Up The Glitter

I have just been doing exactly that (well Boxing Day, although non existant here, is a day for recovery) and reflecting on our wonderful Christmas. As is the custom here John and I had our own special meal on Christmas Eve and opened our presents. We always open a bottle of champagne but for the meal we like to have something that we don't have often; this year it was scallops.

We were looking forward to Christmas Day as we had been preparing for some time. We thoroughly enjoy the planning and preparation but when the big day comes it is always tinged with a little apprehension. We were to have a six course lunch but would the estimated timings be right? We had made copious contingency plans to fill in the possibly indeterminent times between courses. But, after all, the guests were all friends and would make allowances - we hoped.

All was ready and our friends arrived, and then disappeared, reappearing later singing carols and serenading us. It was off to a good start.

We began with a cocktail and opened our presents. At the Murder Mystery evening ( reported earlier), we had drawn names out of the hat and we each bought a present for a designated friend. Everyone went to extreme care to customise their gift, even to the extent of publishing a book full of pictures of "us lot", known amongst ourselves as "The First Levellers", - too complicated to explain.

The meal proceeded without too many problems, once I remembered that the vegetarians also wanted something to eat. As per an "old fashioned Christmas in England" we played silly games between courses and had asked our guests to write a seasonal story . The idea was that once we were full up after main course we would quietly relax and read the story. We realised very early on that this aspect of the proceedings was not going to go according to plan. Our friends had arrived with bags full of props.... what was going on? At the appointed time John and I read our tame stories to be followed by a full scale comedy play, a pantomime in which we all took part and a game which ended up with us all on the floor appearing to be praying in a mosque.

Unfortunately at that moment, the one car per week that passes our house decided to go by. We dread to think what tales are going round the village of "the goings on with that English lot". We did not realise what thespian talents our friends possessed - they deserve a more public airing. Watch this space.

We feel privileged to know such good sports (or people as balmy as us - may be that was why we all crossed 'The Channel'). I have a feeling that we are in for another dose at New Year judging by the questionaire we had to fill in this morning!!