christmas lunch | Richmond Mummy

Ho, ho, ho, hope you had a very merry Christmas and are suitably (almost) recovered from the excesses of the last week. Being 36 weeks pregnant (today in fact!), I sadly wasn’t able to indulge in my standard Christmas Prosecco – Vino – Baileys combo (when I say combo, I don’t mean served all together of course, that would be weird… although maybe I shouldn’t knock it until I try it…) but I did make up for it in the food department and ensured I stuffed myself to the max – gotta be done eh?

We had a lovely Christmas, seeing friends and family, and Richmond Toddler really got into the whole festivities of the season – particularly present ~~giving and~~ receiving, which she embraced in a BIG way!

Our Christmas properly kicked off on the 22nd Dec, with a party at a neighbour’s house in Richmond. It was kids fancy dress and Richmond Toddler went suitably attired in a Christmas fairy style costume: aka a dress from Gap and a little fabric tiara and wand that I’d picked up at H&M (there’s a new store in Richmond, yay!).

Christmas Fairy Princess

There were also wings but she refused point blank to wear those, so she was a wing-less fairy… Oh, of course her special Cinderella shoes – that Nonna bought her at the Harrods Cinderella Slipper Salon a few weeks ago – must get a special mention as they completed the look along with a matching handbag that I also picked up in H&M. She looked a sparkly treat

There were party games a plenty and Richmond Toddler had her first taste of playing pass-the-parcel and musical statues, she had great fun!

A couple of days later and we were at another party, this time on Christmas Eve, and Richmond Toddler had the chance to play with some of our neighbours’ little ones, while we chomped on some delicious festive food – including sweet potato and marshmallow mash, made by our American host. It shouldn’t work, but it SO does! Yummy

After the party, Allegra walked home in great spirits, dressed in her little Santa hat – she was a sight to behold! When we got home, we let her open one of her presents before she went to bed. It was a pressie from one of Richmond Daddy’s cousins’ children, Daniel, and she ripped the paper open excitedly to reveal… a teddy! wearing a little white t-shirt that said Allegra on it. She was SO EXCITED! She shouted WOW and then gave the teddy a big hug and a kiss and took him up to bed with her, it was so cute.

The first Christmas present

Christmas morning and Richmond Toddler treated us to a bit of a lie in (no doubt because after the Christmas Eve party she’d gone to bed rather late), so we didn’t get up until around 8am which was lovely. First things first of course, it was time to see what Father Christmas had left in Allegra’s stocking – this was greeted with MUCH EXCITEMENT (despite the overriding fear of Father Christmas that our little girl seems to hav

Santa had treated her to a Peppa Pig pyjama case; a Mr Men Night Before Christmas book; a froggy shaped mirror to play with in the bath; and an assortment of craft items like paint pads, foam shapes, googly-eyes and tissue paper etc. (the latter she was a bit bemused by, but Mummy had put a special request in for as is planning on lots of craft activities to keep the two of them busy in 2013).

Then it was downstairs for breakfast and opening presents under our tree – highlights included a Peppa Pig guitar (which she now strums along to the Bing Bong Song with) and a Recorder, along with numerous books, lego games, and assorted other toys, DVDs, and treats: one lucky girl! A quick jump in the bath and getting dressed followed and then it was on to Nonna and Nonno’s house to see them and Aunty Chrissy for MORE presents. Richmond Toddler was so excited about the whole thing that she only slept 20 minutes in the car on the way there and then didn’t sleep again the whole day!

She got… a Trunki from Aunty Chrissy (very happy with that, will be great for going on holiday); a hobby-horse that makes horsey sounds from Nonno and Nonna; and a fab Minnie Mouse ride-on car with lots and lots of sound effects from Nonno and Nonna, which she has been scooting around the house on ever since – she totally loves it! This is just a small snapshot of the presents, because as you can imagine Allegra was totally spoilt rotten with books, DVDs, and other goodies to make a toddler’s heart sing!

All of us then went on to my Uncle Pat and Aunty Lou’s house for our Christmas lunch – there were 15 of us, including Allegra, so it was a big crowd, but it was lovely to share Christmas with such a big group and to get together as a family. Special name checks go out to my cousins Claire and Jo – especially lovely to spend the day with them, they’re both gorgeous and such fun, and brilliant at keeping Allegra entertained… as was Claire’s daughter Charlotte, who Allegra took a big shine too!

We had a fantastic day and a BIG PAT ON THE BACK to hosts Uncle Pat and Aunty Lou who did an amazing job keeping us stuffed full of food and well watered. It was a really fun day that everyone enjoyed.

On Boxing Day, we did it all over again but this time with Richmond Daddy’s family and once more, Allegra was full of excitement and thoroughly spoilt by her Granny and Grandad and Aunty Susan:

Amongst the mountain of presents, Allegra received a very posh Silver Cross pushchair for her to ferry her dollies around in – this was a BIG hit! Then there was a musical dolly from Aunty Carol that plays “All kinds of everything, remind me of you” – which was also quickly a firm favourite and was played approximately 953 times over the course of the day… There were Peppa items a plenty (including a rather fetching dressing gown), books, a washing-up set for her toy kitchen, bath toys, and puzzles… the list goes on and on. And not forgetting of course the BIG fancy Noah’s Ark that Granny & Grandad searched high and low for, which is stunning and complete with two-by-two of every animal you can possibly think of!

It’s hard to do justice to the last few days by summarising them here, but suffice as to say, our last Christmas as a family of three was a very happy one and that’s in no small part to our wonderful families on both sides who treated us to delicious food and spoilt us with lots of love, not to mention presents!

Hope you all had a very happy Christmas too, with lots of love from Richmond Mummy, Daddy, & Toddler – my little Christmas angel…

Normally we would spend Christmas Day at one or other of our parents’ houses, but this year, being far from ordinary, this year – being baby’s first Christmas – we decided we wanted to spend it at home and “host”.

However, with neither of us having ever cooked a Christmas lunch before, Richmond Daddy and I decided to approach things in the only way we know how, i.e. in a professional and overly-controlled manner i.e. he created a spreadsheet to plot out the timings for each component of the lunch, while I fussed over things like the festive table setting.

One of the things that worried me the most actually was having enough food and ensuring we had all the essentials. I’m not talking essentials like your meat and veg, we were unlikely to forget those obvs, no, it was more the stuff like the box of Quality Street, assorted crisps, enough nuts to sink a small ship, that kind of thing. The essentials. I did stop short of buying dates – well, I figured that they were fairly universally unpopular in our household so we could live without them. However, despite the lack of dates, I was still able to rack up a bill of around £300 with Ocado, thereby concluding that this hosting business is an expensive one. Ouch!

So, as I said, we were hosting, and the preparations essentially began on Christmas Eve, when I embarked on a simultaneous present-wrapping and soup-making marathon and Richmond Daddy sat on the couch sipping his Santa’s ~~sherry~~ Baileys, eating a mince pie, and putting the final touches to his master-plan in excel. Having already made sure that Santa had visited Richmond Baby, leaving her with not one but two stockings of pressies while she slept, ~~Santa~~ Richmond Daddy and I, fell into bed weary and a bit blurry on Baileys at around midnight, hoping to get a good night’s sleep before the onslaught of activities the next day.

Twas the night before Christmas

Christmas morning broke and thankfully Richmond Baby let us have a lie in until around 7.15am and then we were up-and-at-’em to get started on our busy day. First though we did take some time to open a few of the presents that Santa had left, Richmond Baby was a bit bemused and confused but soon got into the swing of things…

A spot of breakfast, a jump in/out of the shower, and then Richmond Baby and I headed off to church in our Christmas-best outfits, leaving Richmond Daddy holding the fort (aka having to cook the Christmas lunch). This turned out to be quite a smart move, for once RD was left alone, armed with his spreadsheet, he suddenly turned into Gordon Ramsay and by the time we’d returned from mass he had cleaned and stuffed the goose, with it already in the oven smelling delicious, peeled and prepped the potatoes, parsnips, and carrots, started manhandling the sausage meet and stuffing balls (ooo-er) and was about to make a start on the turkey. Ahem, yes, we decided to serve goose AND turkey. This would have been a good plan to ensure there was something for everyone, had the turkey turned out to be about 2-hours away from being ready when we were all set to serve the goose. Ah well, even the most carefully prepared spreadsheets can sometimes fail you. Anyway, essentially, Christmas lunch? Done!

Well, actually, not quite “done” but very much on the way.

Anyhow, RD’s parents and sister then arrived, well we think it was them, we could barely see their faces behind the enormous armfuls of presents they arrived with, and then my Dad also joined the party, also with armfuls of present. Unfortunately my mum and sister weren’t with us on Christmas Day, they were spending the day with my wonderful Granny over in Ireland, which was lovely for them but we missed having them with us of course. Before long we were settling down to our lunch, Richmond Baby sat at the head of the table in her highchair, chomping her way through her own little roast dinner. In truth, much of it ended up in her bib and/or the dining room floor – we’ve moved on to baby-led weaning… – but that aside, she enjoyed having all of us round the table eating alongside her. Well, she enjoyed it apart from a brief moment of terror when we decided to do a simultaneous cracker-pulling around the table. The bang-snap-bang caused RB to have a bit of a wobble, but she soon cheered up again when presented with a portion of Granny’s trifle…

Loving the trifle

I'm pretty sure the sherry-soaked sponge wasn't in her portion, but...

Of course the absolute highlight of the day – goose and all the trimmings aside (bravo Richmond Daddy, it was delicious!) – was the big present opening extravaganza! I couldn’t possibly tell you how many presents RB had to open, but blimey, it was A LOT! Rather unfairly, we dressed her in her final Christmas outfit – a pretty Christmas fairy dress (I know, so cruel!) – for the occasion, which added a certain touch of magic to the occasion!

There were books, there were soft toys, there were bath toys, there were walker toys, there were puzzles, there were musical toys and there were clothes, wooden toys and high-tech plastic numbers. Generally, there was lots, of EVERYTHING! Let’s put it this way, she wasn’t short of opportunities to rip open parcels. What a lucky little girl