Hilary's Adventure: Christmas Day

Yay it is Christmas! Today is the day most looked forward to after birthdays only to be over in 24 hours. The whole house was up and eating breakfast by 11am. I managed to drag myself out of bed at about 9.30am to Skype home. After talking to them for about an hour I went and joined in the breakfast frenzy. Everyone seemed to be eating on the small side because they knew what was to come at lunch and the rest of the day.

The Christmas tradition for the family on Guernsey is to go for a swim in the channel before lunch. Don’t know when or how this started but it is one of the sillier Christmas traditions I have seen in a while. We were all invited to take part. If we were not taking part then we had to have an ‘official’ job that prevented taking part in the swim. I wanted to be the official photographer but Trish got in first so, I became the official towel carrier and Michael was the official time keeper. I wasn’t going to go for a swim but I was going to watch. Everyone else went for a swim. They said it was the biggest turn out for the morning swim ever. There were about 30 people in total, some family and some friends. Every group that went down took mulled wine and spirits so they could warm up after the swim. The general rule for the swim is to last in the water for about 10min throwing a ball around then you were allowed to get out. The water wasn’t very warm about 11°C but outside the water it was about 10°C so only slightly warmer in the water. I think some people’s fingers started to turn blue by the end. Once the 10min was up everyone came running out of the water to dry off and warm up. One of the group of people that came down brought there camping stove down so they could have hot mulled wine to drink after, best idea ever!

After it was all over time to pile back into the cars to drive home for hot showers to warm up. We happened to be the first car home so we all got first showers and ready on time. Once everyone was warm again it was time to head to Tony’s sister place for pre-lunch drinks. We stayed and had a few drinks for about an hour then it was time to head back and have lunch. If were late Helen was going to be mad because lunch would be over cooked or very cold.

Between drinks and lunch we open presents. So I finally got to open my box of goodies from home. I was so nice to be able to eat right tasting chocolate again. So if you haven’t guessed the box was full of Aussie chocolates and chips. Kyle also gave me a box of delicious chocolate. He gave me a Christmas lunch in chocolate lol. Everyone got an assortment of interesting things in their KK. Kyle got a flying thing, Tim got a Shisha pipe and Michael got 3 jars of flavoured oils. They were the ones I could remember.

Time for lunch. It was a very nice lunch and very filling. We sat down to eat about 2pm and didn’t leave the table till after 5pm. By that time it was dark and time to go for a walk around the block to help lunch go down.

After the walk it was time to sit down a play with the Christmas presents. The boys decided to play poker so I went off and had a nap. After my nap it was time to sit down and watch the movie The Kings Speech. Boy that is a brilliant movie. Next on TV was the new Absolute Fabulous Christmas special. Now that was funny and well worth watching. To finish off the day we watched the first ball of the Boxing Day test in Melbourne. I think I lasted the first over or 2 then off to bed I went to eat chocolate and read my book before falling asleep.