Ghost of Christmas Past

Hi,

Well, I’d meant to post about Christmas sooner but have been really snowed under (no pun intended) with work when not immersed in the festivities. Anyway, I’ve just taken the big Christmas tree down which makes me sad (though the two little trees stay up all year round along with some of my favourite Christmas ornaments like the Christmas Disney Princesses, the Santa ice cream van, the Santa ornaments whose stomaches somewhat disturbingly open to reveal a Christmas scene, a small bucket of plastic candy canes and lollipops and some realistic plastic sweets I bought for the tree but which looked so good I put them in a bowl in the lounge and hoping Adam Cherryade doesn’t try to eat them!)

Anyway, now the decorations are gone it’s a good time to look back over Christmas.

Christmas was, as usual, a delight. Adam and I spent Christmas with my mum and dad in St. Annes. Christmas week was great fun. My parents had invited some of their friends round on Monday to watch our second round University Challenge match against Kings College London (we won by the way, will post about it soon!) which was surprisingly fun and, in contrast, we went to see the Chuckle Brothers in panto the next day which was lots of fun! Wednesday was spent trying to get all the Christmas food shopping done with my parents which was quite an experience, partly because my parents are the worst shoppers in the world and kept having embarrassingly loud debates about what to buy and my dad kept complaining to staff about everything and partly because strangers kept coming up to me and saying they’d seen me on University Challenge, which is a bit odd, it kept happening after the first time I was on too, didn’t realised so many people watched it! Anyway, we finally got everything for Christmas dinner and that evening Adam Cherryade arrived, he’d had to work until the 23rd but once he’d arrived we were all set up for Christmas which was going to be a nice quiet day with just the four of us. Unfortunately first we had to spend Christmas Eve doing the last of our shopping and delivering presents. Braving Blackpool town centre on Christmas Eve is not much fun. It’s mostly full of pound shops and shops full of things nobody would ever want so trying to buy presents was proving impossible, it’s much cheaper than Manchester but much less impressive, suffice to say Adam Cherryade was close to a nervous breakdown by the time we’d finished, got spotted by more people who’d seen UC too, starting to feel really famous but also incredibly embarrassed! Anyway, after the stress of shopping we had a nice time delivering presents to Aunty Elsie and then to my old friend Rebekah who was also back from Cheltenham to spend Christmas with her family. It was lovely to see her and catch up with her and her family were all there too which was nice. We eventually got home and spent a lovely restful evening watching some great tv.

Had a nice lie-in on Christmas Day before getting up and tackling the important act of present opening. Got some lovely presents this year, new dresses, cds, a DVD of a Muppets Christas Carol to replace my VHS copy, lots of Hello Kitty paraphanalia including plates, a little tin case, a make up bag and throw, a jammy dodger necklace, jam jar and slice of toast necklace, ice cream necklace and a big fruit flan hair clip and lots of other goodies! Adam and mum and dad seemed happy with their presents too, I’d got Adam some clothes and DVDs and we’d bought my mum a black sequined parka.

It was then time to ready ourselves for Christmas dinner, it was mostly ready, mum had cooked the turkey the day before so once we’d got the veg on the go and put the sausages wrapped in bacon in the oven it was pretty much done. We did the usual round of phone calls to family members abroad then watched the queen’s speech before dinner was finally dished up and we tucked in. It was delicious as usual but we were so stuffed after the main course that we only managed a bit of the Christmas pudding, what a shame! The rest of the afternoon was spent dozing in front of the tv before spending the evening dozing in front of the tv, a lovely quiet and peaceful new years day, perfect!

Boxing Day was considerably less peaceful as my uncle Steven and Aunty Jackie, my Aunty Joyce and my cousin Katie and her husband Steven all came to visit for the day, it was lovely to see them all as I haven’t seen them since Katie’s wedding in May.

Sunday was our last day in St. Annes. It had been lovely to spend some time with mum and dad as it’s very rare that we get the chance to go and spend any time with them. We headed back to Manchester to see Adam’s parents before they left for Scotland for new year. We spent a nice evening with them had dinner and exchanged more presents. Got some fantastic presents including a Hello Kitty glitter lamp, 3 Hello Kitty beanie toys, a set of Strawberry Shortcake glasses, a money box in the shape of a strawberry cream cake with a picture of Strawberry Shortcake on it, a money box in the shape of a slice of cake, a trinket box in the shape of a cupcake, a miniature cake stand with tiny cupcakes hainging from it, 2 mugs with cupcakes on, Disney Princess duvet set and a Barbie bath mat (notice a theme? They all fit in beautifully in Cherryade Towers)

Afterwards we finally returned to Cherryade Towers (laden down with bags!) It was so lovely to be back, I’d really missed it! The next few days were very quiet. Nobody was back yet so we put all our new things away and I got lots of work done. New year’s eve was brilliant. We’d been invited to a party at Chorlton where our friends Dave and Kirsty (from Manchester’s premier club night Under Achievers Please Try Harder) were djing, but then we got a text from Beck asking if we wanted to go round to theirs as they were having a party. We only intended to go round for a bit but had such a lovely time that we decided not to treck over to Chorlton in the freezing cold. It was lovely to see Beck and Gaz’s new house and to catch up with Vic and Soph and the all-night games of sing star were a lot of fun, was great to celebrate the new year with babycham, like the old days! Great way to see in the new decade!

New year’s day was very peaceful as was the rest of the weekend. Normal service has resumed now. Adam’s back at work, I’m busy with uni work and nights out resume this weekend, January is always a quiet month though. Sad Christmas is over but sure 2010 is going to be brilliant! Will do a little post about my highlights of 2010 soon!

Our first University Challenge quarter final match against the excellent St. Andrews team is on on Monday (11th Jan) on BBC Two at 8pm.

Happy new year everyone and hope you had a wonderful Christmas!
Rach Cherryade xx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk