Nearly there

Last day at work before Christmas today and would you believe it, I have two client meetings. Because I will definitely be able to get you divorced in the two and a half hours between our meeting and the whole of Edinburgh shutting down for Christmas. Honest.

Christmas is shaping up okay, I think. I seem to be the designated wrapper this year. I wrapped my Dad's presents to my Mum this morning because I had ordered them for him on the interweb and I know he can't wrap for toffee so I did it for him. I wrapped husband's presents for friends of his from work on Wednesday night (again because husband can't wrap. Or rap for that matter) when I was feeling nice and "relaxed" after our office Christmas lunch. And tonight I will be wrapping our presents for the boys and my father-in-law's presents for the boys which we have bought for him because he has been unwell and though he is much better now, he isn't up to deciphering precisely which Dr Who figures are the ones our offspring crave. Good job I like wrapping stuff. And I do. I love that orderly, tidy pile of neatly wrapped packages beneath the tree when I have finished. I think all my organisational and neatness impulses go into wrapping presents at Christmas and I have none left over for the rest of the year for, you know, hoovering and dusting and stuff.

We are off through to sunny Troon tomorrow to pick up father-in-law and bring him back to Edinburgh for Christmas with us. Our plan is to spend the day there, take him out for a meal and then drive back through. First Born is particularly pleased about this - we will be going for chinese food and as he plaintively said this morning "I haven't had chinese for TWO WEEKS!". Oh, the humanity. Call Social Services.

I don't know whether my FIL will have decorated his house or not. I really hope he has put his tree up as I remember vividly the first time I saw it. I spent my first Christmas with husband's family rather than mine about, gosh, 20 years ago now. I walked into the living room of FIL's house to be met with the vision that was a purple tinsel Christmas tree in all its Seventies splendour. Better yet, it had a severed head hanging from it. When I finally plucked up the courage to ask husband-of-the-future about that, he seemed mildly surprised that I found it odd. "We used to have an angel for the top of the tree," he explained. "But the body fell off so we hung the head on the tree." As you do. They had been doing this for years and never considered it.......weird. Which is partly why I married him.