This post is part of Belfast Bloggers over on Tumblr. Twelve Belfast Bloggers. Twelve topics for 2013.

If you’re on my Facebook or Twitter you’ve probably seen the pictures already, but I thought I’d add some text here for context.

We started, as most people do, with decorating our tree about 3 weeks ago, I think it was. Adam was, for the first year, helpful in this!

And he seemed to have fun as well. I managed to let go of my ‘it must look like *this*’ tendencies and just let him (and, I admit, Simon) hang the ornaments wherever they like. I usually like to make sure they are well spread out and that the lights are on better and the branches more spread out, but everyone was impatient to get to the decorations part so I dealt with it. Barely. Next year maybe I’ll put the tree up myself, add the lights and *then* invite them to come help. Me? Control freak? Nah!

I’m also still very annoyed with the top strand that claims to allow you to set it to *not* blink, but we’ve never been able to figure out how to do that, so just the upper third of the tree flashes. Again, have had to just live with it. New lights next year, I swear!

So we enjoyed our tree for a few weeks and started getting excited because Granny and Grandad (Simon’s parents) were coming down to spend Christmas with us. Until Grandad got ill. Nothing serious, but it hung around for a bit and he just didn’t feel up to travelling or staying in someone else’s house and who can blame him? So it wound up being just the three of us. Not nearly as much fun, but we had a nice time anyway.

We started, as many do, with our stockings:

And then Adam moved on it his actual presents. We don’t exchange gifts among the adults in my family, just from us to the various kids and we get things from Simon’s parents. My mom sends money (which she actually gave us when they were here earlier in the year) and my dad sends a cheque for me to spend on Adam. Simon’s parents get us things but since they didn’t make it down, we’ll have to wait. What this meant is that everything under the tree was for Adam!

He had quite a haul with a lot of train track, some DVDs, an easel and some Mega-Blocks. All in all, a very good Christmas for a small boy.

Adam and Simon started setting things up right away while I went to work cooking Christmas dinner.

Our Christmas dinner was all the traditional things: turkey, sprouts, stuffing, sausages, bacon, roasted potatoes and cranberry sauce. It was yummy, if I do say so myself!

So it was a good Christmas, if quiet. Perhaps some excitement next year?