Christmas!

My first wife was half-Austrian and her family would celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. I grew to prefer this approach quite rapidly. I'd been brought up on the adrenaline rush of Christmas morning presents, the big lunch, and then the long, slow descent through into the evening, punctuated by James Bond and bouts of Quality Street induced nausea*. I found the alternative approach of a slow build during the day consisting of last minute shopping, cooking, wrapping and quick dash to church before eating and then opening presents suited me far better.

Curiously - but happily - though, my Christmas Days have now come to resemble those Christmas Eves, mainly because my folks go to church in London in the morning and then drive up, so that we don't have our meal until the evening. However, some traditional elements remain. For example, the girls arrived at the cottage just after ten and insisted that we immediately open all the available presents before the Minx left for Christmas with her family. Then it was an afternoon of drinking and cooking, interrupted only by a short walk to go and feed the cats up at the house.

My parents made the trip in record time, so there was plenty of opportunity for more presents and drinks before we ate and then settled into happy, companionable evening in front of the fire. And I was so involved in the day and being with my daughters that it barely occurred to me to take any photos, so all I have is this fellow, which I actually took for Instagram

*This was prior to my longstanding boycott of Nestlé, obvs