An alternative Christmas Day

We used to do the big family thing at Christmas. For several years everyone came to our house and I cooked for between seven and fifteen.  It was hard work – especially with multi-generational preferences in entertainment – but a lot of fun as well.  When the children grew up, left home, married, and had families of their own, we decided to break with tradition.  Now they do their thing and we do ours.  This has solved that age-old problem of who goes where.  So on Christmas morning after I’d been round to Dad’s and got him up, washed and dressed (he’d been invited to some close friends for lunch on Christmas Day and to my sister’s on Boxing Day)  I raced home,  packed turkey sandwiches, mincemeat flapjacks, and a flask and we drove down to Cape Cornwall.   The roads were virtually empty so we made record time.  The wind had a keen edge but though cloudy it stayed dry.  We had a lovely walk, then sat in the car and looked out at the crashing surf while we ate our sandwiches.  Then we drove back the long way – from Lands End via Zennor, onto the Gulval road to Penzance then Helston and home where I made a cuppa and Mike lit the fire.  It was a relaxing, different and thoroughly enjoyable Christmas Day.