Christmas Day - Fort Worth, Texas We went to bed quite early the night before which didn't account for the fact that we didn't wake up until 8:15am. The boys had a little stocking at the end of their hotel beds and were really pleased that it had not been forgotten, even though we were miles from home. 

Since we had all four of us in our one hotel room/suite, we had already decided to have out Christmas breakfast with Mum who was in the room next door. We pooled our furniture and had enough to put on a good spread for our Christmas breakfast. There is a picture posted. 

This was definitely an occasion where less is more. Although the boys had far far less than any previous year, they were more than delighted with the little items they received. We had received a couple of parcels from the UK and a deal of cards. 

Much to our surprise the Christians of Texas (and probably all of North America) do not celebrate Christmas Day in church. The day itself was a Saturday. They go to church on Sundays and that's that. There was actually quite alot of evidence that the day itself is perhaps not as significant as it is in Europe. One of the houses in the cul-de-sac where my brother lives was being subjected to it's period visit by the garden care company. Alot of private house gardens here are tended by maintenance companies. They send in 3 or 4 gardeners and a truck load of equipment and visit for 20 minutes to half an hour twice a month. It's probably about $80 to $100 per month and is very effective. The gardens tend not to be massive (houses mostly occupy at least 50% of the lot that they sit on) so alot can be done in a short time. 

After a leasurely (over here they say "leeeeshirely") breakfast, we made our way over to my brothers house and generally made ourselves busy with Christmas day activities. We had a light lunch and prepared the table for our turkey dinner which was consumed around 6:30pm. We had present opening between lunch and dinner. The boys were again most gracious, preferring to hand out the presents to all the assembled family, rather than to receive. They only received a couple of small things again but were content and delighted in the day as much as anyone. Progress at last!