It's 21 minutes past Christmas. I'm sitting at the computer waiting till I go to bed so that I can sneak the girls', stuffed full of goodies from Father Christmas, Christmas stockings, onto their couch on the landing.

The girls, full of Christmas expectations, didn't get to sleep till gone 10 and Merriol and I spent the next two hours wrapping stuff and sorting out the order in which presents from other people would be opened to avoid sulks along the "She got more than me!" line - and coping with Merriol's colour-coded wrapping paper system. Father Christmas has three types of paper this year* one for presents for Daisy, one for presents for Holly and one for presents to share.
Then there's the different coloured papers for presents from us to the girls. I just did what I was told but I did end up having to re wrap at least one thing, shifting it from a Father Christmas present to an us present to keep things balanced.

I'm looking forward to seeing what Holly makes of one her gifts from us. When Tyler was here he bought Holly a chess set. It's a sort of Johnny Appleseed project of Tyler's, he leaves chess sets wherever he goes. Unfortunately Merriol and I known less than nothing about the game so, wrapped up H's pile of goodies, is a book called something like How to Humiliate Your Dad at Chess. If nothing else I might learn how to set the board out without looking at the picture on the box - which in this case was a bit of a mistake because whoever set the pieces up for the studio photoshoot managed to put the bishops on the corners - and even I know that's wrong. I did scan it but have lost it in the guddle in my computer.

It's now 1 am. I think the girls will be finally asleep now....

.... I hope...


Sneak... sneak...


Merry Christmas...






*Now safely stashed in the loft where it will be forgotten till the very instant I put next year's left-over roll on top of it.