We’re in what I call the “lull” – the few days after the chaos of Christmas, before the chaos of New Year. Quite often I have to work during this time, but this year, due to the way Christmas has fallen, I’m actually not back to work until January 2nd – result! And to be fair, Christmas wasn’t too chaotic, and New Year won’t be either as we’re just having a quiet night staying with friends. I’m planning to write a separate post about our Christmas, but just to explain the reason there aren’t many Christmas photos in my selection below is because I was actually poorly over Christmas and didn’t feel up to much 🙁 Anyway, as usual on a Sunday, here are my selection of photos I’ve taken over the last week to share with you…

	On Christmas Eve the geekdaughter came to work with me. It’s a special thing my office has done for the past few years, although there were a lot fewer kids in this year than previously, probably due to the way Christmas fell. Each child got a little goodie bag and we were all invited to breakfast in the staff canteen where Father Christmas visited. This picture show the geekdaughter sitting at my colleague’s desk, making herself completely at home. She had a great time, although I’m not sure she got a completely balanced picture of life in a busy office!
	On Christmas Eve the stockings came out. Or in our case the sacks – as the geekdaughter demonstrates her “stocking” will hold her”. She’s still freaked out by the idea of Father Christmas coming in to her room during the night, so we set the stockings up in the lounge and he leaves the presents there.
	The geekson wasn’t very sure of the whole Christmas thing at first, but soon realised that there was a pile of presents for him to open, and his little face lit up with excitement.
	This is my best present this year – it’s a drinks mat that the geekdaughter made for me, with a little bit of assistance from Granny. I knew she’d been doing various crafts and things with my Mum, who collects her from school every Wednesday and looks after her for a couple of hours until I get home from work, but I didn’t realise how well she was getting on with it all.
	Christmas cracker jokes haven’t got any better have they? I insist you share my pain!
	The geekson loves all forms of transport. Although I think cars remain his true love, he’s currently enjoying playing with his trains, particularly as he’s just figured out how to put his wooden train track together. With the geekdaddy’s resurgence of interest in the fantastic game “Transport Tycoon Deluxe” with the new open source recreation of said game, it was only a matter of time until the geekson spotted what he was doing and wanted to join in. As I mentioned last week, I love seeing these two spend time together and it makes me look forward to the future, where I’m sure there’ll be a lot more of this kind of thing happening!
	Even though we’ve had a relatively quiet Christmas at home, with no significant travelling involved, and a few lazy days at home, it’s obviously still tiring for the geekdaughter. Or alternatively it’s allowing her to catch up on much-needed sleep after her first term at school. Whatever it is, this is how I found her the other evening after leaving her alone for a couple of minutes to make her tea!

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