[Heavy bit - sorry. I guess Christmas means different things to different people. It does concern me that many people get sucked into the commercial traps laid by the profiteers, but, for us, Christmas is about people and enjoyment and I don't think these things are mutually exclusive.]
As we did last year, we travelled over to Chris and Gaynor’s in El Escobar with Derek and Anne. We all take some part of the Christmas dinner, which, with careful planning we each cook in our apartments, bringing it all together for our Christmas feast. This works really well, and after rehearsals last year we were confident that there would be no problems. Food for Christmas Eve was a buffet again prepared by all of us.
According to my ISS (International Space Station) app we were due for a fleeting view of it later that night (9:00pm ish), so at the allocated time and under a full moon we went up to the roof top verandah to have a look. Lesley and I have seen it a few times now but the others hadn’t. And it was fantastic. Especially so as Tim Peak had just arrived on board to much fanfare, there was also a very large and visible full moon, and of course it was Christmas Eve, and, probably Santa was on board, hitching a 17 1/2 thousand mile an hour lift to deliver all his presents.