Christmas in three countries

Happy 6th Day of Christmas, friends! I've set myself the challenge of recording our Christmas using three photos from each country - so here goes... We started Christmas week at home in France. Père Noël travels by horse and carriage here! The smoke is from a barbeque (of course).

The lights in our town are the most tasteful for kilometres around... and the church was lit up by wonderful fireworks from a storytelling event in the town centre.

More lights when we arrived in England - my parents in law regularly go to visit a local street which is decorated for charity at Christmas. This year they took me, Ben and the boys - it was incredible!The theme for this part of the holidays was family - we had a great meet-up with the cousins for a visit to Bristol aquarium.We also met up with some friends - I finally got to visit Niki at her shop Nostalgia at No. 1 - she and her lovely shop are all I had imagined and more! Later in the visit I met up with "Josie Crafter" and we had such a good, long chat about the homemade, happy life and our various children. Ben and I also took the boys over to visit his old schoolfriend Bill (no, I'm not making up that name-combo) and we had an enjoyable late night with him and his family.Finally we arrived in Edinburgh, at 8.15am on Christmas Eve. It was fantastic to see my dad doing well, and to decorate the beautiful Christmas tree he'd put up in his hallway.

There was a LOT of food preparation over the next two days. Ben and the boys decorated the Christmas cake I'd made back in October, using the pieces of marzipan wreath the boys had made with Ben's mum. Then Ben prepared most of the Christmas dinner, and later the boys and I worked hard to prepare a buffet for Boxing Day evening, when my sister and her husband arrived.Hard work in the kitchen was a lot of fun, shared out as it was, and we were well-rewarded with a fantastic Christmas meal and truly magical Boxing Day spread! It was a relaxed and happy family Christmas.

The festivities in Edinburgh are never complete without a trip to the Winter Wonderland fair. This year we went with Aunty and Uncle, and shared out the rides between adults and teenagers - Son 1 went up the Scott Monument with his uncle and I later braved the Big Wheel. I feel I've spent too long not doing things, and the Big Wheel was a good Thing to Do!

Thanks for all your Christmas wishes - I'm off to read some of your own Christmas posts now...