Santa Shnanta

In the spirit of Christmas, we tried to make the Playgroup as fun as possible for our little ones - songs, a tea party and a visit by the man himself. It all seemed so easy when the ideas were decided upon - but you try finding a bloke that actually wants to be Santa on a particular day and who has his own costume. Busy, Mad Friday and IBS were given as excuses, and eventually I followed up a phone number of someone's father-in-law who apparently was a good bloke.

Yes, that would be fine - and he even had his own costume. All I had to do was find a pair of size 11 wellies, but ringing around asking what size people's husband's feet are is not always well-recieved...

The day came, he was to be there just before half ten, parents were to arrive at 9.20, bring a present with their child's name on, I had a sack, the wellies, a thank you bottle of wine: it was all going to plan.

Instead, he arrived at 9.15 and was in a rush to leave. Everyone was late. A little boy in his mother's arms will be traumatised for ever as he was accidentily carried into the kitchen to see Santa getting changed. I rang a few people screaming at them to hurry up. A grotto was hastily arranged. Someone had forgotten their present, so I found something naff and stuffed it in Santa's wine wrapper.

We found some sleigh bells and frantically rang them. Santa ran in, not bothering with the wellies as he was in a rush to split. All but two of the children screamed. The traumatised boy stayed in
the other room, one girl buried her head in her mother's lap and refused to move.

Two children enjoyed it. The others sprinted up, grabbed their present and ran for it. We managed to bribe five to sit near enough to him to be in a photo.

As he returned chuckling to the kitchen, my daughter ran to the window to see the reindeers and was rewarded by seeing a bloke with a beard stuck to his jumper diving into a Mondeo.

We have decided next year to stick to a few twiglets and the rude version of When Santa Got Stuck Up the Chimney...

Skidding...

As a child, I used to think that if I ever went on Mastermind (as I presumed everyone did at some point) I would say that my chosen specialised subject was The Famous Five and my profession was a "skidder" *.
My sister, Sue, was pretty good at it but I thought I was amazing. Every winter, we would find fantastic skids - usually on the pavements outside the old folks bungalows I am ashamed to say - and we would spend hours trudging up then skidding down them. Obviously for the old folks there were broken bones aplenty, but for us, just occasional wearing through of our wellies.
But karma being what it is, it all comes back to haunt. It's very hard to do a managed skid with a pushchair and I am at that stage of life whereby I walk along doing a half skid / half ooo, me oesteoporosis walk.

I am hopeful that I can pass on all of my tips and skills on to my children and can stave off moaning about the Council not gritting the pavements for another decade...

* ice, not pants.

Congratulations Little Brother Steve!

It's brilliant! I have just sat in my kitchen with a large glass of my dad's sloe gin (no, that's not the brilliant bit, although it was pretty good) and watched my lovely little brother, Steve, marry the beautiful Nicky in a chapel in Las Vegas!!

It was from a webcam and it was the most romantic thing I have ever seen. My little brother was smiling from ear to ear and Nicky was giggling and the guests were wiping their eyes and I was blubbing and slugging (and shivering). It was great.

I remember when I used to carry Steven around on my shoulders for days at a time - which is probably the reason for my bad posture now - and there he is, a married man with a fantastic wife and a wonderful life ahead.

When I first heard that they were going to get married in Vegas, I was rather hoping that they would at least have an Elvis wedding, but I am now glad that they didn't. Hopefully they will have a deep-fried mars bar at some point on their honeymoon, but maybe you don't need some old geezer with a quiff crooning Love Me Tender in the background in order to be happy...

Lots of love to you Mr and Mrs Jenkin,

Lorraine.

Christmas is coming, Lorraine is getting fat...

It has finally hit me that Christmas really is on its way - not just because I'm a Celebrity is nearing it's conclusion and I have to add Advent Calenders to my list of things that I have forgotten to buy, but because everyone else is busy worrying and I'm not.

I'm usually quite blase (rubbish) about Christmas shopping, thinking that it will all sort itself out, but of course it doesn't and I am usually left buying extra things two days before Christmas, because the things that I bought earlier are really not going to cut it. It's all very well being in the "I'm a supporter of the true meaning of Christmas and that one should send good joy instead of piles of plastic" camp, but that means very little when you receive a beautiful hat and glove set and give back a hedgehog that you found nearly perfect on the side of the road.

Also, being a little bit older than I was means that I now don't come in the "oh, don't worry, she's young and busy and has so many more exciting things to think about" category. Now I'm in the "she's a tight old bu**er that one and is trying to wait for the sales and it's not fair as I actually bought her / her family something quite nice" one and it's not such a good place to be.

However, I also have to acknowledge that it is quite common for me to think this way at this time of December, but it still doesn't mean that I will do anything about it.

The upside of Christmas coming is that my Mum passed my Dad the first mince pie of the season the other day and as he was telling some longwinded Christmas story and wasn't concentrating, the dog sneaked a lick of it as it went past. Well, it may have lost its sugar, but at least it had a lovely glaze...

Lorraine.