All done for another year

That's it. Christmas all done and dusted for us for another year. We have one more day off tomorrow before kids are back in school and Mrs Stats and I are back in work (though to be fair Mrs S has had to work 4 days between Christmas & New Year, including New Year's Day, whilst I slobbed about - who'd be a nurse manager?).

Anyway, as usual, and despite best intentions, I've eaten (far) too much, drunk (a little) too much and am developing indigestion. Resolutions for the New Year therefore include easting less, exercising more and maybe drinking a tad less. Yeah. No seriously. Well maybe drinking a tad less.

It's a funny old thing Christmas. It creeps up on you out of nowhere, and is gone before you can blink an eye. It's certainly a commercial free for all these days which rather grates with me despite all the above. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to go into a silent retreat or anything, but when did you last see a holy Christmas card, or go to church for the right reasons, rather than falling out of the pub for midnight mass? And try as we might we always spend more on presents that we intend to.

So, the last of the family gathering has gone - we had 15 including us four for dinner today, we've seen nearly everyone we wanted to, the tree is holding up (but will be down tomorrow), and then it's the packing away of decorations, lights etc.

We've managed to accumulate 5 black bags of rubbish (that's discounting the 2 crates of empty bottles, 4 large bags of plastic and three large bags of cardboard and two large bags of paper that will be going to recycling. As an aside why is everything packaged in plastic these days? Does my head in.

So, back to (relative) normality on Tuesday. Frankly I prefer being on holiday!

And no, we won't be chucking our tree on the side of the road like in the picture - well, only for the local council to pick it up for yet more recycling....