A Busy Weekend – Part One – Santa Special
This morning we set off for the Boardman Christmas Family Get-Together at Churnet Valley Railway, it was time to meet Santa on a steam train. We had to be ready and waiting at the station for 1pm as that was the time of our train.
We arrived at the station just before 1pm and met up with the rest of the family which consisted of:
Grandad (Trains) & Pauline
Uncle Harry & Auntie Carol
Uncle Mike & Auntie Jennifer
Uncle Graham & Auntie Carrie
Uncle Simon & Auntie Melissa
Amy & Callum
Courtney, Jake & Luke
Hughie
So all together there were 21 of us, and that was without Uncle Michael, Auntie Alison and Joesph! We took up a whole train carriage. We found our seats and settled down for the journey, although settling down was quite hard and We were all very excited as we knew that at some point Father Christmas would come and see us and would give us a present. Daniel sat with Pauline, Uncle Simon, Auntie Melissa and Hughie, Hughie had bought a picnic on the train which he wanted to play with rather than eat and at one point Daniel had to tuck in to try and encourage Hughie to eat some of his lunch.
Emilie & Josh sat with Amy, Callum and Daddy (Tim), Mummy (Alli) started the journey with Auntie Jennifer but ended up sitting with Emilie, Josh, Amy, Callum and Daddy (Tim), it was a bit of a squash around the table but fun! We had lots of fun on the train and as we travelled down the track we became more and more excited, eventually we arrived at the next station and we saw Father Christmas get on the train which sent us into hysteria! We were watching him walking through the carriages handing out presents to all the other boys and girls on the train, and then he arrived in our carriage!!!! He gave us all presents, apart from the Mummys, Daddys, Grandads and Grandmas as he said that they hadn’t been good enough this year to get a present on the train, but if they behaved between now and Christmas Day they might still get some presents.
There was a bit of a mix up with Daniel’s present, the elves hadn’t put one in Father Christmas’ sack so Father Christmas sent one of his helpers to find a present for Daniel and to tell the Elf that he was sacked! Emilie & Amy received doggy handbags with some colouring pens in them, there was a pink bag for Emilie and a blue bag for Amy which shortly after receiving became a blue bag for Emilie and a pink bag for Amy as they decided to do a swap. Josh received a really cool Speed Racer car, which he couldn’t wait to get out of the box and start playing with, and eventually Daniel received a model car which was a Landrover, he actually thought this was quite cool!
It was then time for Father Christmas to get off the train and go and check that Rudolph and the rest of the reindeer gang were ok in the field next to the train track, he had to leave them in the field as they would have caused chaos in the train carriages. We then set off on the return leg of our journey and passed the time by playing with our new toys. When we arrived back at the station we said Goodbye to all the other family members before heading off to Uncle Michael’s for the next stage of our very busy but exciting weekend.