It's been brilliant.
Lots of the festively familiar with a sprinkling of new. Just how it should be.
Perhaps predictably, the indefatigable (his batteries are always fully charged) and occasionally bearded littlest eschewed his pile of presents for an old plastic stick (for the launching of tennis balls for the Boo to catch). In fact, he loved it so much he licked it.
It's official. I'm the worst player of Downton Cluedo (any Cluedo) ever. You'd think with all the crime novels I read and all the crime dramas I watch I'd be ahead of the game but no, it's clear I haven't the first clue how to play this. Why do I end up eliminating every suspect and every room so I never know whodunnit or where? Why can't I eliminate more than one weapon? Why didn't my sparkly (and heavy, I could never be an actual countess) headdress distract the other players sufficiently to enable a bit of sneaky reading of their detectives' notes? Fortunately, I'm better at Scrabble (very nice placement of the word 'quire' to use up all my tiles, even if I do say so myself) and huzzah, I won the prize box of chocolate truffles.
We headed for the beach the day after Boxing Day. The tide was in, it was busy with people, dogs and surfers, and the queue for fish and chips (me, I'm craving broccoli and salad) was unbelievably lengthy but it was so good to breathe in lungfuls of sea air.
Of course, there's been a night at the panto. Our town only has one theatre (in its iron and steel making heyday it boasted a total of nine), so small it was named the Little Theatre, and we usually have to travel to Newcastle to see anything half decent. But panto is panto when all's said and done, so down the road to Aladdin it was. A massive improvement on last year's dire production, I loved it. Oh yes I did.
So now the Christmas presents (i.e. the ones the mister hasn't already eaten) are gradually being put away, breakfast on these in-between days is a very generous wedge of Christmas cake or a chunk of gingerbread house and I've concocted a recipe for a savoury pie to serve on new year's day. I'm calling it New Year's Day Savoury Pie.