December 2011
Christmas started early for us this year, and with lots of wonderful carol singing, as Mikee was engaged both with the church choir and with the school's. At the end of November Ottery town switched on the Christmas lights and celebrated by the choir singing.
The very next day St John's school arranged its Christmas Fayre with lots of market stalls, a Santa's Grotto that both Eric and Mikee visited and of course more Carol singing.
After that Jennifer and Riza became busy decorating the house, as we were arranging an evening of Carol singing at home at Knightstone as a charity event for the church. On a Friday in the middle of December some 20 choristers came to the Manor together with 50 guests, who had bought tickets and joined us for mulled wine and minced pies. The tickets were sold out immediately, so the mayor had to bribe some of the people to get tickets! Judith Reynolds is directing the choir in front of our Christmas tree.
Two days later Mikee was admitted as a full member of the choir in a ceremony at the church. And then we had a staff party and then a week after the carols at Knightstone, it was time for our traditional Christmas party with Swedish food, snapps and glögg (mulled wine). Lots of children of all ages made it very memorable. How well it goes to combine a black tie party with lots of children. They rushed around enjoying themselves but were very nicely dressed. We were in total 95 at the party, but we still had food that lasted over Christmas.
And so came Christmas and with that all my older children came down from London. The Swedish food had to give away for traditional English Christmas fare.
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