the missus has two jobs, finishes one around four tomorrow afternoon then starts the other three hours later, so it,s down to me to cook it and clear it...then may wait up for her coming in again. A 03.00 viewing of Dr Who,s looking good!

..just polished off. Rudolph's carrot too. That's on top of a bottle of Prosecco me and the GLW shared earlier on. We'll regret that in the morning. Youngest seems to have finally settled (it's 1am!), so presents just laid out, and we'll put their stockings on their beds as we go. Traditional viewing of 'It's A Wonderful Life' earlier on. Merry Christmas everyone!
'Buffalo Gals won't you come out tonight, come out tonight...'

Veggies all done tonight
Rise around 9am
Coffee
Present Opening
Pause for bacon sarnie
More present opening
Fizz
Hot Tub
Shower
Lunch
Walk
Sleep
Feverish activity in kitchen
Relatives arrive
Eat
Drink
Hunt The Thimble
Bed

I've just e-mailed my annual Christmas Eve letter to my friends in Brisbane and South Island. When I wake, I will have the morning to myself and I will listen, as I have done every Christmas morning for the last 30 years, to Anthony Phillips' Private Parts and Pieces Part 2, (I realise this will mean nothing to most, but I'm answering the question honestly and accurately.), Benjamin Britten's Ceremony of Carols and possibly some of Sufjan Stevens' Christmas box set. With my morning, weather dependent, I may cycle off on the empty roads (last year I walked across the frozen lake - not an option this year), or take a walk in the woods, but I will most certainly just take my time enjoying my own company.

Then at midday I'll pedal the couple of miles or so to my folks' house and do the roast, trimmings, spuds, parsnips, sprouts and Jerusalem artichokes for them and my aunt. My mother will ask whether I've put the plates to warm several times in short succession. At least one of my brothers will ring from overseas just as I am serving up. I will, as ever, hopelessly over-cater, having forgetten that three nonagenarians collectively eat less than one of me. Finally, we will all regret having eaten Jerusalem artichokes, despite how good they taste; if you've ever eaten JAs, you will know what I mean.

With any luck, I won't watch any telly.

So it starts with excitable kids and presents around 7am if we're lucky. My parents will come over to us after the service at their church. We'll try to eat early enough that we can go out for a walk afterwards, and the rest of the day will depend a bit on the success of the presents - if we've got it right we may not need the TV on at all. The PVR is set for everything we want to watch, just in case.

In Gandhi's birthplace, Porbander, India.

Not exactly your traditional Christmas.

Just a normal day here in Saudi Arabia. But have a lovely day everyone!

Happily, my insomnia has abated for one night, so I've actually had a decent nights sleep. I'm spending the day at home with my ex and our two little daughters. When they wake, it'll be dressing gowns on, and downstairs to see if santa & rudolph ate their goodies.

My sister and brother in law will arrive around 11am. We're going to cook lunch together (rib of beef this year), open presents, eat nibbles, maybe go for a walk. Lunch around 2pm, followed by a movie: either Up or a Muppet christmas film. I'll do my magic trick at some point (it's terrible; I'm a crap magician but it's an essential part of our day), my sister and I well will eat too many Lindor, and we'll speak to our mum in Florida.

It's going to be great. Have a happy day, everyone. X

12 hour dayshift in a power station

The lights must stay on !

I'll spend most of the day looking forward to tomorrow (when there's some footy on television! Sunday without football doesn't really seem right). We've got lots of people round today so it'll be pretty chaotic and I imagine that most of the day will be enjoyable. There seems a lot of military planning going on around food and timing - I pointed out that Domino's was open so we could just have pizza but that (very good) notion has been rejected. No stress around presents again this year because I haven't got any and don't expect to get any either.

EDIT: 7:45 - first (and hopefully last) "misunderstanding" of the day. The GLW is preparing something and has used non-vegetarian cheese. "I won't have any.. not a problem". Turns out that they're mainly done for my benefit. It somehow turned out to be my fault! .. retreated to sanctity of the Internet! That's what comes of trying to do things before having breakfast!

... to my friend Dave's house. He & his wife will have a house full, including Dave's parents who are over from Portsmouth, who, coincidentally, live half an hour from my parents.

There will be plenty of food & drink. Other than that, I've no idea what's going to happen tomorrow... except I can tell you I will sleep well tomorrow night. Then I'll be camped in front of the telly on Monday watching the footie and nursing a hangover.

a cup of tea after delivering Mrs Phil to work. She's due to finish about 1pm so I've got a few hours to kill before collecting her and trotting the 60-odd miles round the M25 to sister-in-law's place in Surrey to see the rest of the family, open pressies, and do the Christmas socialising stuff. Late evening we'll head home as she's back at work at 7am tomorrow - I'll be cooking dinner ... eek.

We are sat in bed with coffeee, listening to Aled Jones. I've given my dad hid meds (though once again he injected his insulin before I got there so I hope he's got it right). We've spoken to the relatives in France and I'll be popping down to see my sister who has terminal cancer (the main reason we have been here for the last six weeks, as she and her daughter looked after my dad) and then my brother and his son are coming over for lunch, cooked by the GLW, who has been an absolute tower of strength over the last few weeks. Without her, I'd probably be a jibbering wreck by now.
Last year, brother & son did the dishes after lunch, all of which had to be done again! This year, I'll do them.
I'm also going to pop by the house that I was born in to take a picture on the steps outside. I got my first camera for Christmas 1966 as my dad was fed up with me wanting to use his. I'm going to take that first pic again holding the original. Hopefully I wont alarm whoever lives there nowadays.

We were allowed to sleep til 8.00. My daughter and her two cousins have opened their stockings, while the grownups looked on approvingly. Breakfast will now be taken, then a short walk will be dutifully observed before the main present opening. I'm hoping Santa will have finally relented and got me In Treatment.

But one fly in the ointment: my father in law and sis in law's husband both whistle ALL THE BLIMMIN TIME! one of them out of tune. If you hear about a massacre in the Tunbridge Wells area...

The Crout household are not normally together over the xmas period so we don't really have any traditions. Mrs Crout is either working or visiting family in New York.
We've got all the grub prepared so the idea is,to visit a friend then go to the beach.Sunny but a slightly chilly wind (15 degrees centigrade) so 'er indoors can use her new camera that Santa brought.
Hope everyone has a great day. merry xmas to the massive.

Had a slap op feast last night, consumed loads of wine, two or three ports and a few neat whiskies. This morning, despite the hangover, ventured forth on my bike with some of the locals, whose idea of fun was a 3 hour , mud splatterd ascent and descent of some neighbouring hills. Limped home, showered and then had a three hour nap.
My plans of spending the rest of the day in front of the telly have been scuppered as my wife has put me in charge of our rather feisty 8 month old who, no doubt, fancies a game of pulling daddy's last remaining hairs from his aching head

... in Bavaria we celebrate on Christmas Eve and today is a bit of a recovery day. My daughter and me have been out for a bike ride and the rest of the day will be spent watching DVDs (coz the telly's shite).

We've just got back from a post-lunch trip to the skate park at the bottom of the village with my kids and their older cousin (he's seven). Now, a small hiatus going on right now before we Skype my folks down south-west. Boblet 1 is just busy having a bit of a cry while Grandma makes her and her sister and cousin pay Uno. Can't say I blame her: COMPULSORY FUN. How well I remember.

But it's been lovely. 12 of us crammed into my in-laws' not-large house. I was cooking, and though I say so myself, it went damn well. I brined the turkey this year: HIGHLY recommended method. I love cooking and I can't think of a nicer way to occupy myself on a Christmas morning: whirling around the kitchen while little daughters and nephews scuttle happily about playing with their Father Christmas spoils.

Doctor Who later, with any luck. Also, I need a beer now before I start getting a headache. Can't have that.

*tops up*

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Its my partner's birthday today, so we try to have it as more birthday than Christmas. However, a couple of bottles into the day, and its now Christmas. Hic!

I have two sisters, and their birthday is the 24th December...

Happy Christmas to everyone, and Happy Birthday to anyone else whose birthday is today.

various lego/playmobil toys in different stages of construction. Pudding to follow when room allows.All well with the world.

Walked our two elderly labradors on our local beach at Porthtowan, Cornwall. They're now paying the price and snoring loudly.
Unusually, we're on our own at Christmas this year - and very nice it is too. One of the consequences of divorces is that Grandparents have to take turns and there are three sets of us to accomodate.
Merry Christmas to everyone.

We've had a day of great teamwork, I'm happy to say. Me, Mrs Fatman and two sons have worked like a well-oiled machine knocking together a goose dinner with trimmings agogo. Now relaxing with yet another glass of merlot and wishing everyone well.
I wish everyone well for the new year. Lets keep things convivial on the blog in 2012, eh? xx

All home in Ireland for the holidays. My son has made the day.... can't post more: sing song pt 2 about to start...
we haven't even had to put on the telly this year....

we haven't even had to put on the telly this year....

By my reading of the Radio Times, not watching any Christmas day TV seems like a good result...

A happy quiet day with just us three at home. When you reach a certain age all you need to be content is your own bed and your own toilet. We gently poked our little ones tummy until she woke at 8:10am and then watched as realisation dawned. We followed her little bum single-stepping very quickly down the stairs to wrench open the living room door.

He had been and what's more he had taken a bite out the lump of raw marzipan left over from the christmas cake decorating she had fashioned into a yellow snowman. As a treat for him, you understand.

She remarked on this briefly then to business. We didn't think we'd gone mad on her this year but on stacking the swag up last night we realised we had. Very nice of course but we don't want her spoiled or to live in expectation of piles of kit. Amply demonstrated in that most of the day she has been in thrall to one thing only - a Nintendo DS. Hmmmm... Still, it's not her fault.

That's by the by. She was thrilled with everything she unwrapped.

Mrs B and I performed a pincer movement in the kitchen and sorted the lunch like a precision instrument. It was almost balletic. Synchronicity. All tasted marvellous apart from the carbonised hockey pucks that emerged from the oven after my yorkshire pudding batter had earlier been inserted. Mrs B took it well, with only one thwack to the napper with a serving spoon doled out. It is Christmas after all.

We're also very proud that we haven't stuffed ourselves to the point of nausea. We seem, at last, to have outgrown that need. Although some leftover veg and stuffing have been partaken and I have poisoned a large area of Berkshire. It's like the bit in Close Encounters with the drugged sheep outside.

My brother captured the moment when our Christmas dinner degenerated into chaos. Watch to the end for my uncanny impersonation of Robbie from Take That.