Christmas at Old Forge House
2015
Teresa
as usual had planned for Christmas early, with provisions and presents either
already delivered, or ordered for collection nearer the day. Early in the month we started to wrap the
presents and dust down the decorations.
Teresa has also picked out several local events to attend, including
Christmas fairs in Broadway and Winchcombe, and Christmas services at near-by
Hailes church, St Eadburgha’s in Broadway and at
The
Winchcombe Christmas Fair on Tuesday 1 was well attended: there were carols outside the old Methodist
chapel and stalls set out on the main streets.
Our dining room turned into a temporary Christmas
workshop, regularly in use by one or other, or all, of us, for wrapping
presents, writing cards, and frenzied practice for our family Christmas
concert.
Jay produced her own hand-made cards – no prizes for
guessing whose was the one on the left.
On
Tuesday 8 we went to buy our Christmas tree from a local farm and it turned out
to one of the bushiest and freshest we have ever had
Our tree came from a local
farm, very fresh and perfectly shaped ►
On
Sunday 13 Roger drove Teresa and Jay to St Eadburgha’s Church (below) in Broadway
for their Carol Service.
On Tuesday 22 Helen returned home for
Christmas, staying until Sunday 27.
On
Wednesday 23 we spent the morning in Evesham, making our final calls before
Christmas at the bank, library and shops, and, most importantly, picking up the
food orders from Tesco’s and Morrisons.
The latter calls were not without incident: owing to a computer outage at Tesco’s when we
originally made our order, there was some confusion over whether our order had
gone through and we didn’t get a confirmatory telephone call. It had gone through all right – three
times! We found three identical orders
waiting for us – all with turkey, fillet steak, large chocolate log etc. Reluctantly we could accept only one.
On
Thursday 24 we had our traditional Christmas Eve meal, with quite the best ever
fillet steak for our traditional Beef Wellington.
Helen and Roger at the start
of our Christmas Eve meal ►
Our
Christmas Day lunch on Friday 25 was traditional Christmas fare: Teresa had ordered a fresh turkey this year,
and very good it was.
We
followed the meal with an afternoon of presents and family games.
◄ Helen
and Jay waiting for the presents
We
saved our Christmas concert for Boxing Day, Saturday 26, where everybody
brought out their party pieces, some old and some new.
Unfortunately,
the recordings made at the time did not turn out too well, but here is Helen
limbering up on the horn (see right), and a link to the programme is below.
Our Christmas Concert - Programme PDF