What’s your best Christmas present ever?  I don’t mean the best one you have received; I mean the best you have given. 

The favourite present I have ever given involved snaffling the letters and telegrams my Granddad wrote to Nanny during the Second World War and some accompanying photos from my parent’s loft.  I typed them out, organised them into date order and had them made into a proper bound book for my Mum.  Bless my Granddad; he had the spelling issues that still afflict this side of the family.  Each letter was obviously supposed to start ‘My darling angel’.  In actual fact (and the only correction I made throughout the book) he had repeatedly addressed Nanny as ‘My darling angle’.

Not a great picture, but you get the idea...

Trying to better that present each year since has been a bit of a struggle.  Dad liked the ‘OAPs on the loose’ hi-vis vests I had made up for him and Mum last year for their walking in the country (Dad is convinced that with the ‘ridiculous speeds cars travel these days’ it is only a matter of time before he and Mum get squished).  Mum seemed a little less enthusiastic though…

This year I think I may have managed to come up with something they will both like.  (Don’t worry – they wont read this before Christmas day as they are possibly the only people in the uk still without a computer).  A lovely photography shop has matched up a series of photos I took of a place my parents love and printed one large image.  I picked it up the other day, rushed round quite a few other shops, went back to the car, dumped my shopping in the boot and…realised that the photo wasn’t there.  I turned into something akin to a cartoon character.  I went very hot, started sweating profusely and I imagine turned a tasty shade of red.  I then completed the look by trying to run; forgetting the ground was sheet ice and ending up with those legs that look like you are cycling without a bike.  Very, very happily, the folder containing the photo had been handed in at the second shop I went back to.  I hope my parents like it sufficiently to make the palpitations worthwhile…

So I think now all that is left to do is help the cookie fairy cook a few more hundred cookies (the 400 this morning didn’t actually fill all the containers and we’ve* run out of ingredients).  It also turns out that 12 meters of wrapping paper wasn’t actually enough so it’s off to Tesco now.  Again! :o)

 * we = me and the cookie fairy.  I have scared myself slightly by seeing us as an ‘us’.  I blame it on my brain shutting down now I am off work.