Despite last night's travails we rose to find Oliver happy and smiling as usual. After he drank his bottle we all set about opening the pile of presents under the tree. Needless to say, despite showing interest in some of the toys he most enjoyed the wrapping paper and (later) the cheese crackers' box.
Hayley set about cooking a Christmas dinner of epic proportions. We started to eat it at 2.15pm but with Oliver needing a feed in the middle of it we decided to split our meal over several sittings. After a tipple of whisky (1st course!) we had our cream of vegetable soup (2nd course) and then the main course. This was a giant roast dinner - quorn roast for me, chicken for Hayley - with potatoes, sprouts, parsnips, swede, carrots and Yorkshire puddings thrown in for good measure. We then paused to feed Oliver but nibbled on Thornton's chocolates (4th course) before returning to the table for Christmas pudding with brandy cream (5th course) followed by cheese and crackers (6th course) and finally coffee with mints (7th course).
By the end of all that it was 5.45pm, so it is safe to say that this will be our only meal of the day, though I suspect we may find room for a mince pie later (8th course?)!
It has been a great day. Oliver has been happy all day. This evening when he started to show signs of refusing to go to bed we decided to give him his dummy in his cot: something we never normally do. We figured that if he was playing up he'd cry anyway but if he was just unable to soothe himself to sleep he'd settle down. Somewhat to my surprise he did indeed settle down, so maybe he has just become unable to soothe himself to sleep by sucking his hands as he used to.
We've been looking forward to our Christmas Day together - just the three of us - pretty much since we discovered Hayley was pregnant. And I have to say it has met all our hopes and expectations.
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