We had a really nice time. We had an early Christmas with my family on the 25th November (at least the date was right). We had a lovely day; all my family could be there which was a joy. All my nephews and nieces took a real shine to Anna with the girls prefering her over me at points! My mum had done all her Christmas baking so that it was ready for when I was there. We put up the Christmas tree and had Christmas dinner. My mum made all my favourite food (she pretty much did that for every meal we were there) for Christmas. We exchanged gifts from Anna and I to everyone else and everyone else to us. It really was like the real day and that meant so much to me. I miss my family a great deal but they made it a wonderful day and I really can't thank them enough or explain how much I enjoyed it. It was a joy, Thank you!
From there we headed on to Milton Keynes. Family are very important to both us so it was great to be able to get to know Anna's family better. We had a great time with them all and they made me feel really welcome. It was lovely to be around for Anna's nieces dedication and Anna's commissioning service. For the commissioning part of the servcie the church leaders gave a really helpful explanation of how Anna was remaining part of their church family and they were sending Anna out from them to serve in New Zealand not packing her off and forgetting about her. That was combined with one of the best explanations of the importance of behind the scenes type service in Christian work that I have heard in a long time.
Sadly the trip was over all too quickly and it was time for me to head back to NZ and for Anna to get on with final preparations for moving out to NZ and Christmas with her family.
The picture is of my youngest niece. The only Christmassy picture I have as I spent most of my time playing with a video camera rather than taking pictures. I'll play with the movie footage soon!
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