Revisited an old Christmas tradition

Would Christmas be Christmas without holly adorned foil on the top of your milk bottles?!
Today was destined to be a busy day with lots of pre Christmas preparations..
Sinead came pretty early to collect the girls and Gracie excitedly showed her the Christmas tree. Despite all past happenings, she was bold enough to make brief conversation with me and I admire her immensely for that.
Well, I do anyway. I have never hidden the fact and all that she faced a few years ago, she has now, it seems, in addition to a new fiancé, come out better on the other side.

Ferguson's departure came soon after and unfortunately, in a complete opposite way to how Sinead & Alex are so good with each other, Ian & I had a huge shouting row and about Millie being upset about me "turning my back on" my so-called friends...
It wasn't very pleasant, even less so on the eve of Christmas.

The rest of the afternoon was spent wrapping gifts... Alexander's, then Ferguson's and finally helping Alex by wrapping Marley's.
By 11:30pm, I was excitedly ready for the late service at St Mary's.
Disappointedly, my zeal was not shared by my companion, who didn't bother to even open his service or hymn book. I was determined not to allow that to dampen my enjoyment and I joined in regardless with all aspects of the service-including the communion.
When we got home at 1am, it seemed a little too late to continue with another Christmas Eve "tradition" of opening a present. Alex was asleep in front of the tv, so I decided it was probably best to just skip it and go to bed.