5 things we did in December

After a wonderful Christmas and New Year, we really are back in the swing of things and back to normal routines!  All the decorations are down and packed away, and the house is clean and tidy.  Time to sit down and think about my intentions/goals for 2020 and the new decade.  But more about that in a later post.

First I want to tell you about some of the lovely things we did in December:

Concerts and film:
Early in December, we went to the Christmas Concert at Chichester Festival Theatre which featured the Royal Marines Band and the choir of Chichester Cathedral. 

It was a change from our normal routine of going to the Christmas Concert in Brighton, which we had been to for several years, and the change did us good!  The Royal Marines Band was fabulous, I was thrilled that they included some drummers!  Here's a little video of them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkPDxy32ANg 

Chichester cathedral choir were lovely too, the choir boys singing like angels in the first half of the show, then just the adults in an acapella group in the second half.


Much nearer Christmas we saw our local amateur orchestra the Worthing Philharmonic, playing it's Christmas concert.  It was a lively concert with lots of Christmas classics including some of Tchaikovsky's  Nutcracker Suite.  Mum came with us and she was particularly thrilled when they played 'sleigh ride' as the encore piece!  I didn't take any photos this year, so here's one from last year.

Our local cinema showed the film of Nutcracker Ballet performed by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden in 2016.  What a magical ballet this is!  The music and staging were so Christmassy!  I am always amazed at the things those ballet dancers can do with their bodies!!  Of course I would rather be at the live event for the atmosphere but these live screening events do let us see these eminent ballets/operas and plays at our local cinema.  None of the hassle of getting to London and back!

Party:
We invited our neighbours in for drinks and mince pies in the week before Christmas.  It went really well with about 20 neighbours turning up.  There was lots of chatter and catching up with each other.  Many of us have lived here since our children were little and now they are all grown up, we don't see each other so much.

Visited a stately home:
Mum and I drove to Standen, a National Trust property in East Sussex just before Christmas to see the house dressed for Christmas.  Standen is a lovely homely property decorated by William Morris.  The house was presented as though it was Christmas Day, and the family had just gone out for walk.  So there were half opened presents, and the dining room  table was as though they had just finished dinner.  It was really good!  Sadly my phone ran out of charge so I don't have many photos, but here's the main Christmas tree and the stairway:

Didn't cook Christmas Dinner:
Our daughter Lucy and her fiance Danny invited us to their house for Christmas Day.  With our son Nicholas and his girlfriend Natalie, plus my Mum, there were 7 of us, plus Barney the dog.  Lucy and Danny cooked a wonderful  turkey with all the trimmings.  Food, drink, and presents were plentiful, and we went for a walk and played games too.  We didn't get home until really late!

New Years Eve:
Some lovely neighbours who we have dinner with from time to time invited us with another couple to their house for dinner and games on New Years Eve.  It was lovely to be invited out as we have spent most NYEs at home on our own recently!  Here's a photo of our very tall Jenga tower, that's 31 layers!  And we did that after midnight after several glasses of wine!