Christmas Day - the Herbert's

We got to Fish Hoek just after 10:00, and had some very anxious faces, of people who were very eager to get the day under way, and thought we were much too late!

I just have to add a comment, that the group of people who gather in Fish Hoek is large, so hence the very large number of gifts under the tree... There weren't many for most of us - the children obviously got quite a few each though.
There are a couple of traditions that have developed over the years within the Herbert family. The one is that before any present are opened, Andrew's mom reads "The Grynch who stole Christmas" to everyone... The rumour is that it dates back to when one of the children was ungrateful for a gift received at Christmas... But anyway, this was now my 5th reading of the Grynch, but Joshua's first, and also the first time that I've seen someone spontaneously get up and decide to act out the part of the Grynch... So here's Andrew's older brother gleefully grabbing a bag to steal all the presents, and then starting to stuff everything from under the tree into the bag. Needless to say there were many protests from the children. But everything was returned!

The other tradition of note is that Andrew's dad dresses up as Father Christmas and comes and hands out all the presents. He tells us all that he's going to fetch Father Christmas, and we have to sing before he'll come out, so you get all the kids and adults singing Christmas carols to call Santa, and then he playfully sticks his head around the bedroom door a few times, tormenting the kids before he finally comes out. And then he gets his Christmas elves (aka the children) to help hand out the presents. But you can be very sure that their concentration span for helping with the gifts is very limited once some of their own come out...

Once again Joshua was completely unphased by Father Christmas...

After all of these festivities then the final preparations for the Christmas lunch get under way, and we all help out in some way or other, while people also start to enjoy their presents. And it really is quite a feast once it's all done, with a roast beef, chicken, lamb and gammon, with all the vegetables that go with, and a really nice full salad. But when you're feeding around 20 people there's more of an excuse to have a big variety like that.

And then after that feast we headed back to my parents for our second Christmas dinner of the day...