Christmas Eve and a Christmas day parkrun!

The first day of the holidays started off so beautifully- everywhere was covered in frost with such lovely skies. I had a fab run (one of the OH challenge sessions was to run up and down a hill 4 times, so I ticked that one off). I then had a day of Christmas jobs including decorating all of the cakes (they were rather taking over our dining room table- I think there were 6?).

An almond bun (from Random Buns of Kindness) was enjoyed, and we even had the fire on while we watched Home Alone- got to get through those Christmas classics.

By the next day the grey clouds had rolled in and it seemed to stay like that for the rest of the holidays. Ah well.

Hot chocolate while wrapping presents

On Christmas Eve-eve I saw this cute sausage dog decoration on my run and my Elf bag and wallet arrived- perfect timing. I got on with more prep- making some vegan Christmas pudding fudge and some spiced nuts.

On actual Christmas Eve I had a day off running, and walked over to meet one of the OH ladies for a walk together (delivering her some fudge and a foam roller that I didn’t need- for some reason I had 2).

I did lots of sorting out and clearing away. When taking apart my jam advent calendar for recycling, I made a discovery. I’d been a bit miffed that on the first day, I got a spoon and no jam. It turned out that number 1 had a double door, with some cherry and Christmas spice jam as well as the spoon. Oops. Number 24 was a decoration so I could hang that on the tree. I also saw lots of parakeets on our bird feeders. They used to be a rare occurrence (spreading out from the London parks) but they are in our garden all the time- they are so bright (and noisy!).

Once Andy finished work we had a long walk and then settled down with tea and a hot cross bun (so festive!) to watch a Muppets Christmas Carol. After dinner we watched It’s a Wonderful Life- those two will always be Christmas Eve movies for us.

And then it was Christmas Day and time for parkrun of course! I was so excited, as of course this time last year we didn’t even have parkrun, and the year before we’d been in France on Christmas Day. It was a long time coming. I’d volunteered as a marshal, so I could wear my With Me Now “meowy Christmas” jumper, as well a Christmas leggings, my Run Up 2 Christmas top (hidden under the jumper), elf socks and reindeer antlers. I ran there and then was assigned my spot, fairly close to the start/finish area. I regretted not bringing gloves though – my walk the previous day had been so mild that I hadn’t brought them with me, but the wind was much colder.

There was also a slight diversion as there was a lot of flooding (it made me miss Ellenbrook Fields as we sometimes had what we called a water feature, basically a flood). I had to direct at the start, and then walk to near the water feature and direct runners away from the big puddle. I was given a cow bell to ring.

Flooded bit of the course! And Christmas Pudding with Encanto.

I LOVED marshalling! I have marshalled lots before (it even beats tail walker as my most common volunteer spot) but I’d not done it on Christmas Day before, always opting to run if I was around. It was just so cheerful. I spoke to a couple at the start who said they come along to watch the parkrun take place each Christmas Day, despite never taking part (I did explain that they were allowed to walk, and pointed out the walkers and tail walker, so you never know). They had missed it last year, and I just thought how lovely it was that people who don’t take part still enjoy the community that it has created.  I loved spotting the range of outfits that people were wearing, and I loved having a bigger range of things to say, wishing everyone happy Christmas and commenting on their outfits as well as the usual “well done’s” and so on.  So many people wished me a happy Christmas as they ran past and I just felt so happy to be there. I saw a few runners from my club and got to cheer them on at the start and even chat to a couple when I had walked back to the finish.

I bought us this Up puzzle for a holiday project, books, vegan selection box and delicious Aldi German hearts

I was quite chilly by this point (even getting my phone out to play a podcast for the run home was tricky as my fingers weren’t working properly) but thankfully I warmed up on the run home.

After breakfast we had a chilled out morning, exchanging gifts, listening to some Christmas podcasts (hooray for the Adam and Joe Christmas special) and then prepping lunch. Andy had given me a New Zealand travel book- I always said I wanted to go there for my 40th (well, the summer holidays- I’m not going there for a weekend!) but of course that didn’t happen. Maybe summer 2023? The book about the art of Frozen is so interesting too, I loved watching the documentary about the making of Frozen 2 and this is similar in that you can see the evolution of the characters and stories. He also got me a vegan selection box, which has so thoughtful. I got a fair few boxes of chocolates from work (which is very kind of the parents of course, but as they all contain milk I won’t be having any of them).

We had a lovely lunch of some veggie parcels (I think they were butternut squash and beetroot with a chestnut topping), potatoes and veggies, but we were too full for Christmas pudding. In the afternoon we headed over to see my parents as my sister, niece and nephew were also there (LFT taken beforehand). It was so nice to be there when our niece opened her presents (last year Andy delivered them as I was isolating and of course we were not allowed to meet up with anyone)- I’d got her a few bits including a soft toy baby Sven (from Frozen) and she was so taken by him (“I’ll call it reindeer sparkles”). Once home we had our Christmas pudding and watched Encanto- a perfect way to end the day.

Did you get to a parkrun this Christmas? Did you enjoy your Christmas?

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2 thoughts on “Christmas Eve and a Christmas day parkrun!”

  1. It was so good to have Christmas Day parkrun back. I volunteered too – barcode scanning – and it was lovely to see everyone finishing their run. We even had an older gentleman who walked around and even though it was cold, nobody minded waiting for home, especially when he was so lovely to us all. I love that part of parkrun.

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