Christmas Day 2007

William had a Christmas stocking to open, before he got started on his giant pile of presents...

I gave him a small hedgehog toy (apparently baby hedghogs are called hoglets - how cute!).

William's first Christmas

William is already enjoying his first Christmas on Earth (I quite liked one of the cards that William received after his birth, which said - Welcome to Earth!). Early in December we bought a Christmas tree from the Sea Scouts by the Thames River, which we decorated with little pine cones sprayed bronze and silver. William enjoys touching the tree and feeling the pine needles. Tescos was selling poinsetta plants for the bargin price of £1.90, so we bought one of them, which was very festive in the lounge room.

Yesterday we packed the car full of presents (a large proportion seem to be for one William Marshall) and drove to Wales. The traffic was fine, which was nice. We stopped off at a pub near Newport to catch up with some ex-Oxford friends who live in Cardiff now and have a son a very similar age to William. Now we are in Gilwern, in the lead up to celebrating Christmas at The Marshall's. As I type, there is drumming, tambourine shaking and singing being rehersed in the lounge room, with William sitting on Jenny's lap watching all the commotion. Will he enjoy The Unicorn concert tonight at Llangattock Church?? I shall certainly enjoy the singing, mince pies and mulled wine! It will bring back memories of last year, when mum, dad and Alice were here and we all went to the same concert the Sunday before Christmas.

A couple of pictures to add

Just to give you an idea of what William gets up to during the day....

He can help me with the cooking (yes, that is a cabbage leaf):


Watch the birds in the backyard:


And when nothing else will distract him, we just place ALL his toys in front of him at once..... it works for at least 10 minutes!