Christmas Day (a very Bertha Christmas?)

We had a lovely little family Christmas in the early morning in Bertha. Mum and Dad were staying up at the house and we had delivered all of our gifts up there the afternoon before. So it was just a few presents for the kids from us, the presents from family that mum and dad had delivered and, of course, the presents from the Big Man in Red under our little tree.

I had secretly packed the children’s Christmas stockings and kept them hidden for 12 months – quite a task in a small space. The children were able to hang them out on the table and we had quite the haul on Christmas morning!

We were woken at about 5.30am and managed to stretch the kids to 6am before we got up to open everything together. We were ‘booked’ for breakfast at 8am and 2 hours was just a perfect amount of time for us to get through our mountain of gifts.

  

Breakfast with Tim, Jennifer, Anna and Carla was wonderful and we then got to experience the usual ‘Dutch mafia’ type of Christmas, with children choosing one present at a time to give to a recipient, which we can all watch being opened, before that person chooses another gift to give and watch. I REALLY love it – I think it has made our children appreciate the giving just as much as the receiving.

THEN we got to experience an Ulcoq Christmas. Tim is one of 8 children and nearly all of them were coming, along with their many offspring. And Tim’s father too. There was an ENORMOUS quantity of delicious food, cousins and puppies to play with, and of course the pool to swim in.

Some time after lunch, I realized that having so many family members together was an unusual event. Apparently it had been about 5 years since it was such a large gathering. Being the photographer that I am, I switched into ‘Wedding Photographer’mode and we got some great pics of all the various families. It’s always handy to have a good step ladder around!

Lunch went on and on and in the end I called it a night at about 10pm! We all had an absolute ball and can’t thank Jennifer and Tim enough for having us share their day with them.