First things first, the tree! The tree was up and decorated when I returned home from university and the presents slowly gathered. We only opened a few on Christmas day - our tradition is to try and make them last as long as possible, some years we've managed to keep presents under the tree right up to New Years Day - but the tree was soon refilled on boxing day when my Aunt, Grandma, and my sister's family popped over.

Christmas day is only complete with films on the TV and board games, or ping pong as my Mum and brother decided to go for. 

And the food is an obvious one too!

My Mum, Dad and I had a nice breakfast (with no bacon or sausages though - here's to being unprepared) whilst my brother went over to his girlfriend Rosie's house for a couple of hours to make present exchanges with her and her family. Once he was back we set the table up for Christmas Dinner!

...with pudding to follow of course:

As my mum and I don't eat the traditional Christmas pudding, last year we decided to start our own tradition of making a cake 'bomb'. It starts with cake lined in a bowl, then it's built up in layers with ice cream and fruits of your choice, we then just pop it in the freezer to set - and eat it quickly so it doesn't all melt again - the logical thing to do would be to save some and put it back in the freezer, but where's the fun in that? 

As I said on Boxing Day the family came round, including my niece and nephew! 

Lil with our cat Frank - it wasn't long before he got scared of her and ran away though.

She didn't warn me we were supposed to be pulling ridiculous faces...

And here's my sister's little man tucking into mine and Mum's cake bomb - glad someone else enjoyed it too!

Overall it's been a lovely few days, I worked right up to Christmas eve, so I've been more than happy to get a break from working. I've got one more shift to go and then I can spend the rest of my time catching up with friends and family! 

I'm insanely excited for 2013, we've got refreshers week in mid January which will be just, or more, fun than freshers, and I've got a whole new year to look forward to with my friends and family from Cornwall and all the amazing people I've met at Keele.

I hope everyone else had an amazing Christmas and got just what they wanted, and here's to the New Year!