T'was the season to be jolly....

X-mas in Paradise...
I was talking to an old friend [he in London] recently comparing what we had planned for Christmas and New Year..
And it got me thinking about the different the Xmas/N-year experiences between UK and Mauritius.
In U.K Christmas's tended to be more of a family thing , with everyone opening presents together early in the morning , followed by the obligatory tantrums ....
This would be normally followed by a VERY large Christmas Lunch with various close aunts cousins, uncles-throw in loads of those paper crowns and dry jokes that come out of Tesco crackers...:)- you get the idea?
You would eat all the Turkey you possibly could , compare presents with your cousins who almost always had better ...... and then of course, T.V!!!!
(Man!!!) Christmas was perhaps one of the few times that we as a family would watch T.V together...
Only Fools and Horses Omnibuses, Black adder Christmas specials, Friends specials, .... ET AL.
In comparison Christmas here does tend to be much more hectic as far as shopping for presents is concerned (buying presents for this aunt, that cousin third removed etc...) but a lot more quiet on the events side... One does tend to get invited to the family lunch but instead of turkey its the local delicacies that tend to get served... all good.But there isn't the 'over eating ' /drinking ( unfortunately) - a laid back affair.
Now all of this has started me thinking about New Year this year.What we gonna do!!!!There are choices (I have to be careful; here as some of the people mentioned read this blog:)

1) go to a relatively dull get together at which there will undeniably be loads of alcohol ( not all bad then)

2)Nice formal Family do , very elegant and laid back loads of kids so less looking after the little one. A little drinking, no overdoing it . wake up the next day regretting that i didn't get totally mashed( this is not an option as i will drive ).

3)Sod everyone , get a BBQ set, Bottle of champagne, and go to the beach and chill and picnic our way to 2007.

ooh decisions decisions....