Its a family affair!

I know its February so I’m sorry for the late post, however, I had to share this beautiful family xmas experience with you all. #Sharingiscaring

It was time to do the much needed family bonding trip and what better place to visit than the Elegant Edinburgh! I know it’s a trek to travel to especially from where I live but we managed to do a 40minute trip on a flight and it was just perfect. I keep forgetting although I live in England, that Edinburgh is actually a different country?

It seems so near but yet so far.

Anyway, my mind was excited with different emotions of anticipation, anxiety and happiness. To see how Scotland would be celebrating the holidays and did it live up to the expectations, what expectations ?

After my illness I now actually have no expectations, and so this then means that each experience I have is a great big positive bonus. Anything that gives happiness because you don’t expect it, is just pure undivided joy.

We arrived at the newly renovated Scotsman hotel and waited patiently for the rest of the family members to arrive and I was also readt for some quality time with my dear Jasmine as she is now fulltime away at university. All my own family are together now, so just waiting for everyone else.

With a bluster of footsteps and loud cheering, one by one, my sister & family, brother & family and mummy arrive ! We exchanged trip details and all checked in , the hotel were so accommodating putting us altogether on one floor next to each other. The next couple of days were going to be full of fun!

We started by taking a brisk walk to see the Xmas markets, it was cold but as the younger ones settled into the rides and were giggling with excitement, the adults headed towards the wooden huts where they were serving mulled wine and hot baked Churros, I sat down and just smiled. It was lovely to be here, enjoying the moment and spending quality time with my own siblings.

After a few cheering and more rides, we then headed for the main shopping street and browsed through then strolled along to the pre-booked Contini restaurant for our early evening meal. It was a splendid Italian located on the bustling George street.

We caught up on what everyone had been doing and took rota in monitoring the childrens table as Jasmine was, now being an adult, wanted to join us.

As we got back to the hotel we all got changed into our personalized matching pyjamas ready for games night. The hotel kindly gave us a bar/ snug room for us all to enjoy our time.

Manish my brother-in-law was in charge of this event, we were all given chores for the trip, mine was to book the hotel, Jasmine & Reena did the itinerary and the Dev's were the games Masters! what a splendid job they all did.

Manish had cleverly incorporated the games into our names so each one was a thoughtful and special question with a very informative answer! It was just perfect.

We then crashed for a relatively early night but the children were running room to room still not being able to contain their happy energy 😊 of being together.

Ok so it’s Christmas morning - the 25th Dec 2019 and I wake up to a little gift laid down next to me. ‘I thought we weren’t doing gifts to each other this year?’ ‘I haven’t bought you anything.’ I said with a slightly sad face to my husband. Deepak replied, ‘ I’m just saying , you are not the only author in this family!’.

I opened the carefully wrapped gift still in the cardboard postage it arrived in and on the front cover there were animated images of me and Deepak holding hands. The title read ‘Merry Christmas love Deepak'.

The book had many pages of different things he loved about me and a little story of our adventurous life together so far. I had only read a few pages and my eyes started to well up and I looked at him ‘This is the most thoughtful gift I have ever had, thank you for reminding me who I am and what I mean to you.’

He then passed me another book in a similar format but this was for me to fill in, our adventures ahead, a sort of a bucket list we should do as a couple & family. It was so romantic & I definitely loved it.

Breakfast was served in their usual family wedding area, they accommodated us again as we were such a large group but it suited us. We exchanged our secret Santa gifts here and the kids were jumping again with their eyes lit up as each person opened their gifts.

Now, we had our Xmas meal located in the main restaurant area of the hotel and Reena informed me that the table we were seated on wasn’t great for our family and it would be much better if we were in the comfy Booths so that we could all talk together.

Being the busiest day of the year and only a few hours for us to dine it seemed impossible but after we all dressed and headed down to our seating the manager George Oxley kindly helped to make our wish come true! To my dismay the tables we were now located on were table 23 and table 32!

Oh what a wonderful experience it was to spend time with my loved ones over the holidays! This was special & meant to be. x