Isabel on Christmas EveI trust you have all had a fabulous few days celebrating. Yay for 4 day weekends!
For me Christmas officially started at 1pm on the 24th when I finished my last pre–chrimbo shift at work. After a quick dash home and some fairly manic last minute packing I headed to my Mum’s house an hour away in Bridport, Dorset. Mr. LA and the children had gone on ahead the day before so my almost-FIL came to pick me up. The drive through the countryside was quite spectacular as all the usually green fields were covered in an immaculate blanket of snow.
My step-father is Danish which makes Christmas Eve kind of a big deal for us as it’s actually his Christmas Day. Every year we have a traditional Danish Cold Table. This enormous feast involves pickled herring, cold meats, gravet lax, Swedish meat balls and lots more. It can take hours to eat and there is usually a considerable amount of Aquavit flowing too (but I avoid this like the plague… it’s not called ‘falling down juice’ for nothing you know!) 
Isabel loves helping set up the table which is always decorated with Danish and English flags. This year we also added an Irish one and an Australian one in honour of some of our other guests. 
Everone gets a special Christmas Eve present. The children opened theirs before heading off to bed. Jesse was thrilled with his new Buzz Lightyear jim jams, we had to change him into them immediately!
Once the children were tucked up in bed I wrapped the last few presents and filled their stockings. I adore being Santa! Isabel is still a believer, but I was wondering if this might be the last year of complete innocence in this respect. I can’t remember how old I was when I figured that little secret out.
After a few more glasses of wine and the odd mince pie, the fella and I collapsed into bed just after midnight feeling very festive and incredibly content.
Loveaudrey xxx
