Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a great holiday period! We've had a busy yet very fun one. We've done a lot so perhaps I had better break it down into sections:

Christmas
Christmas Eve was spent staying the night at the Nix's (my Irish Family) and speaking on the phone to my NZ Family (the whole extended Mills version - Aunts, Uncles and all!) around Midnight, when they were celebrating their Christmas Day. However late I went to bed though, come Christmas morning, I was the first up (6.50am - I am like a little kid at Christmas-time!). When I finally managed to get a few others up at about 8am, we discovered that of course Santa had visited us and got to explore our Santa sacks.
On calling a few of my relatives around Ireland to wish them a Merry Christmas, I discovered that most of Ireland had received quite a bit of snow overnight - everywhere, it seemed, apart from Dublin! We were quite disappointed about that until about 10 am when it started to snow! It waas so exciting and again I was like a little kid, running around the house and dancing about outside. Unfortunately my excitement was short-lived though as the little bit of snow disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.
However, when we came out of Mass at 1.30pm, it was snowing again and this time there were huge big snowflakes and lots of them! The excitement was back and we took lots of photos (see below). A White Christmas!! It was just a pity that the snow didn't stick around long enough to make snowmen or have a snow fight....
Christmas dinner was at 3pm with 12 around the table: Judy, Des, Deirdre, Adrian, Colm, John, Granny Nix, Aunt Sarah Nix, Johnny, Myself, and our French flatmates: Ophelie and Guillaume. It was tonnes of fun with some delicious food and lots to be happy about!
After the dinner we all retreated into the lounge where we proceeded to have fun opening all our presents from eachother.
As is tradition in the Nix's house, this was followed with the older members of the family going for a nap, while 'the lads' all came around and we tucked into the beers for the rest of Christmas Day.



Between Christmas and New Years
St. Stephen's Day (as Boxing Day is called over here) was a quiet one for us, recovering from the day before. The next morning we were up bright and early though and got on a train to Ennis, Co. Clare, where we were staying with my Mum's sister Barbara, her husband Eamon and their children: Eamon and Deirdre Foley. We were also joined by my other Aunt Clodagh, her husband John and my cousins Niamh and Eimear McAuliffe, from Cork. We ended up not staying in their house in Ennis but in their new holiday house in Lahinch, about half an hour from Ennis, on the coast. All 10 of us fitted comfortably in this lovely big house (hardly a NZ style 'bach'!) and had a great few days together despite the weather being pretty wild.
On Wednesday morning we had yet another early morning and caught another train down to Cork, where we were picked up by my Poppa Jack and taken back to my grandparents house for lunch with them and my Great-Aunt Eithne. Later that afternoon we walked around to the McAuliffe's and rested for a little bit until they got back from Ennis around 6-ish. That night, Clodagh, John, Johnny and myself had been invited around for dinner at Margaret and Plunkett Walsh's along with my friend Ciara and her boyfriend from the States (who had just arrived in Ireland the day before), Steve. Despite a lot of us feeling quite tired from the travelling, it was a very pleasant night and it was good to catch up with them all.



New Years
New Year celebrations for us began about the afternoon of the 30th, when we met up with Alison and Simon, friends of ours from New Zealand who are now living in Manchester and came to stay with us over New Years. We met up with them when we got off the train back in Dublin and took them back to our house. After a yummy dinner together we (Alison, Simon, Ophelie, Guillaume, Johnny and myself) went out to the pub as Simon decided he wanted to try his first Irish Guinness. About the time we were on our third beers and in the second pub, Quizzy, another friend from NZ who is living in London, arrived to join our festivities. Of course this was only the day before New Years Eve though so it was merely a warm-up for the next night and we got to bed reasonably early.
The next day we got up early and made it down to the Outback bar with five minutes to spare before the New Zealand New Years (11am over here). However, despite handing out many leaflets for the last month saying "Don't forget the NZ New Years at 11am", the woman at the Outback informed us that they would not be opening until midday so we were forced to do our countdown and yell our Happy New Years outside on the street. We then picked up a couple of random people (Kelly from Dublin and Mark from NZ - both also hoping the Outback was open), and headed off for breakfast before returning to the Outback bar to celebrate the Australian New Years' at Midday, 1pm and 1.30pm (depending on which State you are in) with a few 'Snakebite's (Beer, Cider and Blackcurrant Juice - quite tasty!). Later that afternoon, Ali, Si and Quizzy all headed to the Guinness Brewery, Kelly went shopping, Guillaume went home, and Ophelie, Johnny, myself and Mark went to see 'Lemony Snicket's: A Series of Unfortunate Events' (see our movie review by clicking on the link on the right-hand side of the screen) before all meeting up back at our apartment for dinner later that evening.
At about 9pm we headed into town and eventually found a good bar in the Temple Bar district that did not have a cover charge (we saw one that had a 35 Euro cover charge!) and settled down for a laugh. We celebrated the French New Years at 11pm ('Bonne Annee!'), met some funny Americans (who were drinking Lindauer and getting charged 50 Euros per bottle!!), a couple of English people, and finally celebrated the Irish New Years at midnight. At about 1am, we decided to move from this bar and check out a club (again one that didn't have a cover charge thankfully!) called Redz. Despite the bad music, we enjoyed ourselves dancing and singing until the club shut and we headed home in high spirits.
The last few days have been pretty quiet with Ali and Si leaving at 8pm on Saturday night and Quizzy leaving at 10am the next morning. We have just been getting a few things done around the apartment before heading back to work tomorrow... *SIGH*
Oh well, at least it has been a good holiday period and on an up note it is Johnny and my two year anniversary tomorrow which is pretty special! Yay!