Frank and Josie's House

Hi all, Did you have a good festive season? Ours was lovely. My parents travelled over and we all had our first Christmas in France. There was a lot of food, a lot of wine, a fake fire and a reasonable amount of presents (by that I mean not too many). Father Christmas delivered everything he was asked for and films were watched. A lot of time was spent in pyjamas and with good company, plus we played some games too. All good fun.  Here are some of my festive photos for you.  This is a bit of a downer: yesterday I went for a les than successful gynaecologist appointment about my endometriosis. He was nice but basically told me he wasn’t going to do anything at all, even for the pain. It was a bit of a miserable time for me as I spent ages travelling there by train (easier than driving) and hanging around for a 15 minute appointment that didn’t have any progress for my treatment of this illness. However, I was bought to earth with a bump when I saw this encampment of people in the park. 

Has anyone else gotten completely lost in Christmas preparations? I’ve made Amazon wish lists for my children (so effectively shopped twice) so our relatives know what their ever-changing far away cousins/nieces or nephews like (and thank goodness they’ve extended the same courtesy to us!). I’ve shopped and shopped either online or in shops and discovered massive, sparkling reindeer. I’ve been trying to avoid the gilet jaune protests. I’ve organised the children getting gufts for each other (with a strict 5€ budget). I’m trying to work out what a traditional French Christmas is to give us a taste of it as we’re christmassing (is that gramatically correct?) in France for the first time. I’m planning various house cleaning/ bed changing strategies for when my parents arrive. I’ve negotiated with the children on which size tree to get. I’ve helped everyone back to health after we all suffered from a horrible virus (especially the small person). I’ve convinced my husband said tree is calle