Christmas Race Is On

Christmas morning was heaven. Our boys are teenagers now and so no excited children to wake us up early Christmas morning for Santa presents and our Christmas gift to each other was to switch off the alarm clock and allow ourselves to wake up naturally. Heaven! 8 o'clock came and went and the boys slept on.

At some point Shayne and I got up and had nice cup of coffee. Slowly but shorly the boys joined us and we had breakfast, bacon and mushroom sandwiches - YUM!

Luke was Santa and gave out our gifts from under the tree. We were suitable spoilt.

We knew that the day was going to be one festive feast after another and so Shayne suggested a quick family run but to add some fun, it was to be a race (We are a competitive family after all). The first one home won a prize. The 4 of us left home together, much to the horror of the neighbours, and we ran up to the end of Golf Road and back (6kms). I was hard on the tail of Josh and Luke and Shayne took up the rear. He does not enjoy the hills.

I struggled to keep up with Josh who has the longest legs but I knew that I'd be able to out run our Luke as he is still working on building his stamina. It was on the way back that I dashed past Josh up the hill and managed to hold the lead all the way home. Josh came in a few minutes after me followed by Luke and finally, Shayne.

The competition has really begun now as both boys want to beat me in the Golf Rd run. It is our easy run and we have done it many times, as it is close to home and offers a fair amount of hills for minimum distance.

The rest of our splendid Christmas day was spent at Shayne's mum's house for a late Christmas lunch of smoked fish, herbed snapper and salads followed by the yummiest puddings. Christmas evening was shared with our wonderful neighbours over a few drinks and nibbles before heading home for a movie and an early night.

Boxing Day has been the laziest day of my whole life. Once again no alarm clock to wake us up, although after a good nights sleep, I was quite happy to be awake at 7am. I sat up on my own for a while doing crosswords and then the family joined me. We were all happy chilling at home and I think we watched 3 or 4 movies before we decided to get moving. Unheard of in our normally very busy household.

We decided to have another Golf Rd race so that we were not completely lazy and I wanted to run up the hill faster this time. I took the lead early on and as I approached the end of Golf Rd I could hear footsteps coming up behind me. To my surprise, Luke had a burst of energy and ran right past me! I was impressed because he has not been so active since the rugby season ended and he maintained a good steady pace to the end. I tried to encourage him to keep going, just slow the pace down but he pushed it too hard too soon and hasn't quite got the stamina to run that fast for that long just yet. It will come though if he keeps it up. Needless to say I took first place again but I am looking forward to the day that my boys out run me. I feel pretty confident that it will be soon.

Now we are home for the evening. It has been a quiet Christmas and perhaps one of my favourites. I love my family and I love being with them. I value this time with them and I'm grateful that they still enjoy being with me. I feel so LUCKY to have them and so thankful for having time to just be. Life is good.