'Tis the season to be jolly and all that, and owing to a lucky trick of the calendar, I'm going to be escaping from the shackles of work for near enough 2 weeks over Christmas 

 

Christmas proper will start this Friday though, as Jane and I are going to see James at Manchester Central (or GMEX as it used to be called) in the evening and staying over in town afterwards. Ironic that we had tickets for the James farewell concert at the MEN a few years ago, at a similar time of year - Jane went, but I missed it due to a last minute work trip to somewhere-a-long-way-away...it was very good apparently .

 

On Saturday afternoon, we're off to Banbury, for the now traditional pre-Christmas Christmas dinner with various family members who we won't see on the actual day.  The only downside - apart from the doubling of the Christmas turkey intake of course - is that presents have to be bought and wrapped ahead of the standard deadline, so a big thanks to Amazon for facilitating that

 

A quick dash back up the M40/M6 on Monday will see out my last day at work this year, followed by a few sociable beers in Manchester with a couple of mates - it seems appropriate to plan a lie in on the first official day off of the holidays.

 

Christmas is going to be at home again this year - we've been invited to Jane's brother's, but we've decided to go there on Boxing Day instead - even though the kids are big, they still like pressies in the morning and chocolate money for breakfast.  I must admit to being partial to a buck's fizz breakfast, so having to organise whose turn it is to drive would definitely not be a discussion in keeping with 'goodwill to all men' .

 

Emily is 18 this year, so we've organised a family party for her birthday - which happily co-incides with New Year's Eve - that seems to happen every year too...her grandad has bought her a rocket as a present, which should impress the neighbours, specially given that the thirty pound one he was initially offered in the shop was rejected on the basis of being not big enough.  Just how much of a bang do you get for fifty quid? 

 

On second thoughts, its probably best not to answer that