Merry Christmas to everyone! It’s been a busy and yet equally uneventful week-ish since my last post but I've got lots of festive photos below.

On Sunday we woke up to no discernible changes with the new restrictions and I had a quiet day of doing some Ancestry research and planning out the week. English Heritage were live-streaming the winter solstice sunset at Stonehenge though so we sat in front of the TV at 3:50 to watch that, which was absolutely beautiful!  We made a roast chicken for dinner and skyped Peter’s dad and all around had a nice quiet night. I sat up with my laptop in bed on Monday morning in the hopes of a lovely sunrise to complement the sunset, but from 7:50 – 8:10 there was only a grim grey view of an overcast landscape around Stonehenge. Very English!

Peter finished work on Monday afternoon and we filled our week with lots of walks, baking gingerbread and constructing what became a gingerbread castle. Peter had also bought a Cadbury ‘Christmas cottage’ kit so we also made a chocolate house. The Christmas films began on Tuesday and we watched the Muppets’ Christmas Carol, Gremlins and Die Hard each evening. We’d planned to watch a live-stream of A Christmas Carol from the Old Vic but by the time we went to book it, there were only £65+ tickets, which seemed ridiculous for a Zoom livestream so we watched Die Hard on Christmas Eve instead.

We couldn’t go see the Christmas lights in the city as we did last year, but Canary Wharf had some festive decorations, so we went for a walk over there on Wednesday afternoon and checked out some pretty Christmas trees and lights that were set up around the place. I ran my 5km ‘race’ on Thursday and was very pleased when I beat my time goal by 5 minutes!

Christmas Eve was a day full of baking, with my attempt at cinnamon buns not quite turning out the way I’d planned, but still ending up delicious. I also made my usual potato salad, so we had that to look forward to as part of our Christmas lunch. In the evening on Christmas Eve, we had a very fancy take-away dinner from Hide at Home, with salmon blinis, king crab, turkey with fancy stuffing and a ‘yule log’ and Turkish delight for dessert.  We had a lovely bottle of wine and watched Die Hard, feeling very festive!

Despite being at home all day on Christmas Day, it definitely still felt very festive. We had a relative sleep-in and enjoyed our cinnamon buns, a ‘gingerbread latte’ and a mimosa for breakfast while we opened our presents – and both felt very spoilt by all our gifts! With a collection of wine, snacks, food-related items and games, it’s clear everyone knows us very well.  We had a Skype call with Mum, Dad, Grandma and Grandpa and heard about their Christmas and then got our food going. Much to our surprise, the ham turned out perfectly and after a restful morning we sat up for a Christmas lunch in front of the Blackadder New Years Special (whoops!). At 3 we watched the Queen’s Christmas message because how much more British could you get… and then skyped Jess briefly on her break during night shifts.  After Jess it was Canada’s turn, and we spoke to Peter’s dad, cousins and aunt for a while before sharing a glass of champagne with his Mum and stepdad. As per Christmas tradition, we had leftovers for dinner and after umm-ing and ahh-ing about whether to continue being festive, gave up and started watching the new Wonder Woman movie. We were only about half an hour in when we got a message from our friend Justin about skyping, and ended up putting pause on the movie to chat to him for the rest of the evening. All around a very social day for being under lockdown!

Boxing Day continued the social vibes, although we did have a slow start with watching the rest of Wonder Woman 1984 and going for a run after lunch. At 4 we had a ‘bad movie Zoom date’ with Rachel and Stu and watched the Star Wars Holiday Special, which was a whole new level of bad. After we finished the movie and said goodbye to them we had a ‘virtual pub night’ with his other cousins and some friends, which ended quite late for us!

The last few days have been much quieter, with lots of reading and a couple of walks. Peter started back at work yesterday so I got some planning done for next week, and we’re watching the director’s cuts of Lord of the Rings so they’re taking up the evenings (4 hours!). We’ve planned a week of home-cooked food, a new running program for me and some craft activities, so that should keep things calm and relaxed!