Leevi & Sarahs Travel Blog

With our first overseas Christmas complete I have taken a few minutes to record the experience.

Christmas Morning 12am - 2am

We originally had planned a quiet night in on Christmas Eve but a late text message from Sanje changed all that. Before we knew it we where preparing for a night out in Solihull. Sanje, Ads and I built up a little Christmas cheer before heading out to Apres with Sarah for a dance and a couple of beers. The music was good and we danced early into Christmas morning.

When we arrived home I couldn’t help opening a few of my gifts, it was technically Christmas after all. Thanks for the great presents babe!

Christmas Day 6:30am onward

Our alarms sounded at 6:30am on Christmas day and despite only 4.5 hours sleep we where all still 95% (there was some slight mumbling about sleeping in) dedicated to making it to Birmingham Open Christmas to help feed those in the community who had no home or family on Christmas Day.

We all performed many different jobs at the community hall including, packing up sleeping materials, sweeping floors, setting tables, serving breakfast (bacon, sausage, eggs and beans) and serving coffee, tea and hot chocolate. The ‘guests’ to the breakfast where very pleasant, polite and the thing that sticked us most, extremely thankful that we had taken some time out of our Christmas day to spend with them. There where plenty of genuine volunteers at the Open Christmas however there where one or two who seemed to be a little too self righteous ordering people around and generally being wankers.

After our three hour shift with karma points under our belt we headed back home to prepare for our Christmas lunch and open more gifts. The Christmas menu included Roast Duck w/ Grand Mariner Orange Sauce (my first attempt at roast duck), Nut Loaf (for the vegetarians), an array of roast vegetables and dinner rolls. Dinner was delicious and very satisfying, a huge success all round.

Five minutes after Christmas lunch we where all asleep on the lounges letting our food digest.

With a little correspondence with our loved ones Christmas away from home was a great day. A very deep thank you to those whose sent gifts from abroad. Merry Christmas to to all our friends and family back home we miss you all and hope you are enjoying your Christmas break.

Last Thursday night I celebrated with the AboutMyArea Birmingham / Solihull Head Office team at our Roaring 20’s themed Christmas party. It was a great night of theatrical entertainement hosted by Roxy and Bad Bad Leeroy Brown (who didn’t look very bad in a pink vest and matching hat).

The food was great and so was the entertainment and company. AboutMyArea didn’t win any prizes for our balloon modelling skills even though a few of the team put in some serious hours of practice.

As you will see from the pics everyone dressed up and had a cracking night. Note: First photo may startle.

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To night we celebrated the failure of Guy Fawks gunpowder plot. We bought a bag of fireworks and let them all off over a night of great food and a couple of bottles of wine. Joined by Helen (Sarahs mum) and Julie Fenwick (Helens friend) we enjoyed an organic chicken and mushroom pie finished off with a fresh organic pie.

Anyway enough about dinner….. here are a couple of clips of our fireworks.