Their First Noël

Travelling with the twins to be with family at Christmas: for many reasons, the main one of course being the weather, it seemed the Christmas destined not to be.

Through thick & thin however we made it happen! Timing our journey so that it fell between blizzard & big freeze, we actually made pretty good time & found that there wasn’t too much traffic on the roads. A cunning detour to avoid a potential huge delay helped.

The only other time we made a long journey Ellie cried nearly all the way. It was awful. Being older we were hoping she’d be more tolerant, but I sat in the back between them anyway. They slept for the first hour or so but when they woke up they cried, so we stopped at the nearest services & had a coffee. Why these places don’t have facilities for children I don’t know! There were enough of them there to justify it.

Back on the road they were still unhappy. I had a few toys to hand, but when even they didn’t work I had to resort to feeding them the muffin – toffee & fudge muffin no less – that I’d brought as an adult snack. All that sugar, normally a huge no-no! But desperate times call for…

Anyway they couldn’t get enough of it, & I hope I was able to feed them just enough to keep them happy, but not so much as give them a taste for unhealthy food. I don’t think they’ll need my help for that in years to come…

When we got there they were excited! They seemed really happy at being reunited with more of their loving family & all the new & exciting things to see & explore. Or maybe it was a sugar-rush! Probably both…

The first thing they did? Made a bee-line straight for the largest present & starting ripping off the wrapping as quickly as possible. It’s almost as if they knew what it was: these kids scare me sometimes…

After we managed to pull them away from there they had a great time crawling around & socialising, then we were able to settle them without much trouble into the padded playpen we’d brought with us. They did however both end up in bed with us when they woke up overnight, as they often do now.

Then it was Christmas Day! We of course had to dress them up as little Santas! Ellie especially seemed really excited:

Then: Presents! This time they were allowed to rip away at the wrapping to their hearts’ content. But of course, babies being babies, they now seemed less enthusiastic than the day before when they weren’t allowed to!

It was a very generous gift from our hosts. But it ‘required some assembly’. A bit of prodding, head-scratching, hammering, & – as a last resort – reading of instructions & we had a horsey!  OK: technically, a Zebra. It can be wheeled,

Ride 'em cowboy!

You must figure I'm a reeaal dangerous man

 

Yee-hah!

and rocked:

Cool-hand Jake

Next up, & thankfully needing slightly less assembly, a spinning car arena!

 

It's a serious business, this car-racing

Um, I'm pretty sure it's cars you're meant to put in there, Ellie. But sure: we could try the big squeezy ball!

A lot of smaller toys later – including an alien robot – & Jallie were as happy as kids in a toy shop! Which they pretty much were.

Then of course there was the inevitable ‘playing with the packaging’…

Not surprisingly, they wore themselves out with all this & had a nap before Christmas lunch.

They woke up while we adults were eating though, & were very happy to be with us; first Ellie

Cheeky!

Yes, I do think that was funny!

Right, I've had enough of this silly hat!

and then Jake:

 

Jus' like that!

A cracker? Don't mind if I do!

I won!

After a great lunch & a bit of resting & TV, the twins again settled without much trouble – but again both ended up in bed with us.

In the morning we packed up, somehow managing to fit everything into the car despite it seeming full when we’d left home. Unfortunately Ellie didn’t get the memo, & decided to have a sleep after I’d packed the playpen / bed!

We set off after lunch, not forgetting to feed the babies of course:

Feed me!

Oi! What do I have to do to get some service around here?!

Going back we were very well prepared. I sat in the back again, & we had a bottle each for them, some rice cake snacks to chew on & plenty of toys. After a slurp & a chomp, they were soon asleep & slept right through ’til we arrived home – to a very cold house.

It was a terrific Christmas, one which we all I think thoroughly enjoyed. For Jallie’s first one I couldn’t have asked for much more; they had a really happy time, & you can’t ask for better than that. Our hosts were just fantastic 😀

Whatever the future may hold we’ll all always be able to look back on Christmas 2010 as a happy time.

So a very merry Christmas to you & yours!