Twelve Days of Christmas, Day 10 – Meredith Russell

Up until recently
Santa Claus: The Movie was my favourite. The one with Dudley Moore and John
Lithgow. I love that film. But then I saw Arthur Christmas and I just think
that is awesome.

Wow. I don’t know
really. I guess I hold on to the simple memories of how things used to be when
it was kind of just my family for Christmas. So there were no husbands and wives,
no kids, no in-laws, just Mum, Dad, their partners, me, my brother, and my
sister. Like how we’d always do the same thing. We’d spend Christmas Eve and
Day at my mum’s and Dad would have me and my brother on Boxing Day. So it would
always be drinks, a buffet tea and charades on Christmas Eve. Then on Christmas
morning we’d get up early even when none of us believed in Santa anymore and
Mum would be in and out of the kitchen while we opened presents, followed by
slobbing in the afternoon with the TV, and a turkey sandwich for tea. Then
Boxing Day was Dad’s day – more presents, another Christmas dinner, playing a
board game or DVD game in the afternoon, a buffet tea, then down the pub until
home time. I miss it sometimes, but making new memories with an expanding
family is just as fun now.

I have such
a terrible memory about this kind of stuff. I can’t really think of anything as
an adult that I’ve had that I didn’t either ask for or help pick out. I guess
the last thing that made me go aww was off my husband who had gotten me a small
gift to open on the morning in the hotel before heading over to his parents’
house for lunch. It was an emergency supplies tin and in it was some of my
favourite things to eat/drink, or what I collect lol – a can of Pepsi Max,
Cadburys chocolate, a cuddly toy, and a fancy pen and notebook. It was like…
you know me so well.

Crikey. You
mean besides the gift of my wonderful company? I have no idea really. I love
that my nieces are now old enough to rip the wrapping off themselves and I
enjoy having that magic back in Christmas that had slipped a bit since my
brother, sister and I had all grown up. So I love giving them gifts. But I
guess from a fun buying it kind of thing I enjoyed some of the gifts I used to
get for my university friends. It was kind of a challenge to get ridiculous
stuff. I can’t really think of anything in particular now but yeah, that was
good fun.

Definitely real. Who else
is eating all those mince pies we leave out?

It’s a book
I’ve had since I was a kid – An Oxford Book of Christmas Stories. I think I got
it from some book club thing at primary school. But it’s a strange mix of
horrible, funny, and sweet short stories all mixed up – you know the thing,
people freezing to death and curses and a boy clubbing his grandfather round
the head because he thought he was the real Santa and wanted to steal his bag
of presents. Happy Christmas!

I don’t know because I don’t really know what eggnog is. What is eggnog?
Is it like advocaat? That’s got egg in it, right? If so then yes I like that
when made into Snowball cocktails, so mixed with lemonade and lime.

Other than chocolate? For Christmas dinner it
depends where we are. If we’re at my husband’s parents they do a soup starter
(I guess there’s space in their bellies if they don’t open presents until later
so haven’t binged on a chocolate breakfast), then we have turkey with the usual
veg, roast potatoes type stuff. If we’re at my dad’s he has cockerel, plus very
yummy sausage meat stuffing, and cherry pie for pudding. And if we’re cooking
it ourselves we save up a bunch of Marks and Spencer vouchers and go crazy lol
I think we had turkey and gammon last year, then the veg, roast potatoes, pigs
in blankets, and a toffee sponge for pudding.

I
think it’s a tradition passed on from my parents, but it has to be December,
and because of work and stuff it therefore is the first weekend in December.
That’s my rule and when I send my poor husband up into the roof to get all the
decorations down 🙂 So this year it’ll be the 5th or 6th.

Personally, I’ve always been used to before
dinner, so we get up, open presents in our pjs, binge on chocolate for
breakfast and sneak off at some point to get changed in time for dinner. But my
husband’s family don’t open theirs until the afternoon. So as we alternate
Christmases at the moment, one year we open them before lunch, the next after
lunch.

We can do. I live in
England so we have the cold weather. It just varies when the snow comes whether
it hits Christmas itself or falls before or after.