Day 11: Shop Till You Drop, Then Party

This morning I was out early and wandering around Tesco's casually, buying my Christmas food shopping.  I was not impressed that I couldn't by my turkey crown (so much less hassle than a turkey - we were impressed last year), so called hubby (what would we do without the modern technology of the mobile phone?  How did we manage before?) as he was in Sainsbury's picking me up something else Tesco's had failed me on, and they had LOADS.  So he got one there.

I did £250 worth of shopping today.  That included food for Boxing Day, and over Christmas generally, some booze (for making my mulled cider), wrapping paper, crackers, presents for teachers, and some presents for my nan.  With my staff discount deducted, plus my staff vouchers, and Tesco vouchers, and my nan kindly gave me Tesco stamps as my Christmas present (thank you, Nan), my final bill was just over £80.  My kind of shopping!


I was in there for two hours.  There is a maximum two hour parking limit in their car park, as it's free, and everyone uses it to go into town - hence why I had to go early, to guarantee getting parked.  I hope I don't get a letter in the post, I'll be telling them to check their CCTV! Yes, I was in there shopping for that long. 

I will now not set foot in that shop until the New Year.  My on-line shop is already booked for Wednesday 22 December - the 23rd and 24th were already full!

The other Christmassy thing I did today was write my Christmas cards.  Last year I didn't send out so many, and was thinking of doing the same this year.  But I'd over done it on the stamps and thought what the heck.  Admittedly, I did get a bit tighter on who I sent one out to.  I've decided to cut down my Christmas card list.  I sent out just under 50 cards - well, I haven't posted them yet, but they're stamped and ready to go! 

Then, this evening we went out to Ben's football club's Christmas party - it was held at the pub around the corner, so we could walk.  We were only there two and half hours.  Having two young boys used to routine, they were ready for bed at half past eight. But walking there, and home, we made the most at looking at all the pretty lights on the houses.  On one close, practically every house had lights, and it looked lovely.

The party had a disco.  Remembering this is a football club party, therefore the majority of the kids are boys, one thing I did observe was, at first the younger ones were doing their sort of dancing.  (So cute.)  Then, the bigger ones started mucking around, and I think they didn't have parents there to keep an eye on them, so were out of control in places.  I thought, whereas if they were all girls, whatever age, they would have been dancing, making up little routines to the songs.  However, the boys were, yes, that's right, play fighting.

On an additional note, Ben made Trainer of The Week today, and his coach gave a lovely speech (apparently - I wasn't there, I was doing the shopping) about how he's the most improved over the season.  Well done, Ben.

Tomorrow we're off to see Santa, travelling via steam train.  Can't wait!