We went away to my sister and brother in law's for Christmas this year. They live in Essex so including an overnight stop at my mum's on the way, the drive was around about 6 1/2 hours long. Well worth it when we got to see our presents clustered around the tree along with everyone else's. Usually we post the presents off to my sister in law and her husband and children in one massive box of Christmas cheer but this year we got to see the job on their faces when we brought the presents in!

Their tree with all the goodies given for all 8 of us!

We had been discussing before Christmas the thought of what if Santa really was real but by knowing he wasn't he didn't come? So I took a chance and decided to believe Santa would come. Christmas morning I woke up to a stocking full of goodies! And not the usual stocking tat....this was a good quality stocking Santa gave me this year!

 Rose scented soap (I LOVE ROSE!!!!), cookie cutters, bath bombs, vitamin D lemon melts (my Santa is health conscious it appears!), Sea Salt Green & Black chocolate, floral notebooks, two ribbons, chocolate covered pretzels and a satsuma! Always a satsuma. :)

My present to Dus was a Grand Bagatelle. It's handmade mahogany with brass pins and was much played with over Christmas and boxing day. Tournaments aplenty for those not cooking and even a couple of goes for the two of us chefs!

I returned home to this disastrous mess all over the office.

Fortunately (or unfortunately) I left my laptop charger in Colchester and got a good few days tidying up before the lure of the interweb got too much and my cheap replacement arrived in the mail. Fortunately (or unfortunately) my gorgeous sister in law has posted my real one back to me so normal work can resume after New Year's next week. I'm hoping to get some good de-cluttering done in the meantime before I lose myself to the usual distractions!

And yes, you're right.....Scroogantha became Santantha before too long!