Wickmas 2021

Boxing Day (aka Wickmas) 2021 seems a distant memory already as we start the count down to New Years Eve. It was absolutely lovely to actually have the family back around ours for Boxing Day instead of the Zoom call we had to settle for last year. As usual there was loads of food, presents, games, the giant cracker, quiz and loads more. I didn't seem to get that many pictures from the day, but here is what we have to remember the day.

There wasn't much room in the living room with our giant tree and all the presents.

Once everyone had arrived it was time for some presents.

I think we need a bigger house.

More present opening.

Amy and Shay opening some presents.

Rory looking lost behind that big box.

Tina helping Holly with one of her presents.

Its a giant polar express for Holly to build and colour.

Shay's turn for a present.

Synchronised present opening.

Me doing my Santa job giving out the presents.

Nicky is all smiles.

David seemed pleased with his Dryrobe.

Joshua still wearing his new tracksuit which didn't come off for 3 days!!!

Things were going too slow so it was time for multiple presents being opened at once.

Hard to get a picture of all the family in our living room.

Once of the new fun games we had for Boxing Day was "On Your Marks".

Sibling rivalry and some major cheating going on as me, Nicky, Lisa and Michael go head to head.

Lisa's quiz time.

Heads down and working on their quiz answers.

Dream team of Michael and Dave (Dave wearing his winning Xmas Star Trek jumper).

ANother quiz team and 3 very good Xmas jumpers with Gremlins, Jurassic Park and National Lampoons.

Time for the giant cracker and the secret Santa presents.

View from underneath (courtesy of Lisa) just moments before our giant cracker is destroyed.

Clearly the day got a bit too much for some people. Time for some R&R.

Christmas Day 2021

A little bit late with the Christmas 2021 blog update as the last few days have just been completely manic and non-stop. Christmas Day was spent with just the 5 of us at home and weirdly enough the kids didn't wake up until gone 9am!!!! However after a quick clean of the teeth and a spot of brekkie, we were all ready to tuck in to some presents.

In a reverse of more recent years, Joshua actually had the largest pile of presents as he had three big items for fishing, a bivvy, a fishing camp bed and a pair of fishing waders. That pretty much used up all of his budget so other than that he got a new jogging suit and a Playstation oodie.

Brandon was very difficult to buy for this year as he only really wanted a Samnsung flip-phone which are about a £1,000 and out of the budget. So he really just had lots of smaller presents such as a hard drive for his PC, a loud alarm clock, a smart watch, a beanie with blue tooth speakers, a shower speaker, a Hufflepuff Oodie and some Hufflepuff PJ's.

Holly was quite easy to buy for even though she only had her birthday a month ago. See she is always stealing Tina's tablet so we decided to get her a tablt of her own with a poppet case. She also got loads of games, dolls stuff, bath bombs, Lego, roller skates and pads etc. So far she has only used her roller skates in doors in order to get some confidence and I have to say she is doing very well. I will probably let her try outside tomorrow (if it ever stops raining).

Other than that the big surprise from Santa was our family present this year which was an ultra rare PlayStation 5. Then as tree presents each of us got a game so that we had 5 or so games to keep us entertained on it and prevent me from having to spend a fortune over Xmas paying to download games. We have set the PS5 up in the conservatory with the logic being that it might entice the kids to spend a bit more time downstairs instead of locked away in their bedroom all day and night.

As usual we had a really nice Xmas dinner and some pudding, then pretty much chilled for the rest of the day and prep'ed for the Boxing Day antics which were to follow the next day.

Xmas Eve and Rainbow brought the 3 kids their Xmas Eve boxes full of goodies.

Holly left out Santa's drink and  mince pie, and then some milk, carrots and reindeer food for the reindeers.

We had abviously been good this year as Santa left plenty of presents.

And he had finished off all the drinks and snacks which Holly left for him.

Holly found further evidence Santa had been as he had dropped his sleigh flying licence on the living room floor.

A late start Xmas morning, but we soon got in to the presents.

Holly got her first set of roller skates which she has wanted for ages.

Joshua looking relaxed as he opens some of his presents.

A sleepy Brandon not looking amused with his shower speaker (but it is what he asked for!).

Joshua got this PlayStation oodie to keep warm on them cold wintery days where we can't afford to put the heating on because of gas prices.

I got loads of gym stuff for Xmas, Tina got some Baileys brownies, a rice cooker, some Pandora jewelry and a heated jacket and scarf.

Joshua presents have been the smallest for the last few years, but this year he definitely had all the biggest.

Brandon opening his Hufflepuff Oodie.

He loves his new Oodie and has barely taken it off since Xmas morning.

Of course Holly had to have some more Lego Friends.

Joshua in his new fishing waders which are size 12 feet!

We always try and get Holly a game to play, this year it was a Unicorn Buckeroo game.

Another large one for Joshua with his camp bed box.

Holly's main present was her very own tablet.

Joshua lives in jogging suits so we got him this new Lakers jogging suit.

Joshua testing out his fishing camp bed. Believe it or not he has slept on it in his bedroom for the last two nights!!!

Despite the cold and rain, Joshua had no patience and had to set-up his bivvy in the back garden.

As our family present for 2021 we managed to get hold of the very rare PS5. These have been in a shortage for some time due to Covid-19 and the silicon chip shortage.

It came with a free game called Astro which Holly really enjoys.

But in addition to the free game, Santa left us all a game as a tree present, Wreckfest for Brandon, Worms for Josh, ManEater for me, Bibi & Tina for Holly and Winter Games for Tina.

This was probably the only time I got to sit down all day - Xmas dinner at the King house.

Me and Tina with our 2021 Xmas jumpers - a bit of a tribute to my Mum's favourite Xmas song.

Holly testing out her roller skates with all her pads and wrist guards on.

She loves the pink / purple colouring on them.

She is whizzing around the house now and probably ready to hit the streets now.