A week into the new year already and we still haven't entirely put away Christmas. Whilst the decorations are back in the loft and the tree and cards have been taken for recycling, there are still rolls of wrapping paper in the bedroom, gifts are still sitting in their festive bags and, despite tremendous effort on all our parts, there are plenty of goodies yet to be eaten. I'm thinking that what's left of the Christmas cake will be transferred to the bin before my date with the people at Slimming World on Monday as I want all unboxed temptation (the untouched Toblerone and tins of biscuits can be safely stored in kitchen cupboards for munching later in the year) to be completely out of the way.
Whilst sorting my presents, I've realised Father Christmas was very clever this year, having obviously looked at my Amazon wishlist and very generously giving me everything on it. I now need to find homes on the bookshelves for all of these. (I was also given Susan Hill's ghost story, The Small Hand, and Patricia Cornwell's latest in the Kay Scarpetta series but I've been reading those).
The Rona Jaffe novel wasn't on my wishlist but apparently FC had spotted it in a scene from my favourite series, Mad Men. Nice one.
I'd have to admit that we do go a bit overboard with gifts in this family, probably because there are so few of us (and we're all a bit overly enthusiastic about shopping, if truth be told) so I couldn't possibly show you everything I received but here's a small selection of the rest.
The person who gave me this tea towel (which I may well frame - after ironing, of course) clearly knows me very well.
As does this person. (In my defence, toast crumbs get EVERYWHERE).
I love fountain pens and was delighted with this teeny one.
These two have been no help with the putting away, clearly otherwise occupied doing their shift on the neighbourhood watch.
Speaking of Buzz and Bea, boy are those two in for a shock if everything goes to plan.
Any guesses?