Christmas at The Old Rectory

Christmas as The Old Rectory was a very festive and happy time.  We enjoyed listening to carols from many different local groups including heart-warming and uplifting songs from Ewhurst School who sang a different carol from around the world. Cranleigh Prep School were delightful too with beautiful voices singing a selection of traditional carols.   The week before Christmas we were entertained with poetry and carols from Ewhurst Church choir which was a great afternoon with much laughter and singing.

Christmas Day at The Old Rectory was a splendid affair with festive cheer from start to finish.  The Drawing Room was filled at lunchtime with all our residents and many family members who had joined us for the festivities.  Laughter and joy was all around, presents were delivered from under the tree by Henry and Patrick Geoghegan and we all enjoyed a glass of champagne and a canape. A delicious lunch followed, crackers were pulled and silly jokes were told.  The 28lb turkey was cooked to perfection by Sam, our head chef, who sighed a relief at the end as this was his first Christmas in charge!  The homemade Christmas pudding was presented with flames all around and holly on the top – the sixpence was discovered by Mr Vick !  Sam also created a show stopping meringue as a slightly lighter alternative to the rich pudding.  Afterwards, complete we retired to the Drawing Room to relax with a coffee and to enjoy the Queens Speech.

  

The celebrations continued on New Year’s Eve. The theme of the evening was a masquerade ball and we had transformed the drawing room into a 1920’s dance hall with feather masks, black and gold curtains, a cocktail bar and glitter balls. Everybody entered into the spirit of this with fabulous outfits finished off by some wonderful masquerade masks.  The host for the evening was our Manager Harriet who started off with a review of the year which was great fun to look at photos and reminisce about the year gone by.  Some light entertainment followed with some New Years Eve quiz questions and then some 1920s/30s music . Harriet served some superb cocktails with the most popular being ‘French 75’. We then enjoyed a delicious buffet and welcomed in the New Year at 7pm with the countdown and the big ben chimes (from 2018) followed by a great rendition of Auld Lang Syne.

 

All in all it was a great Christmas enjoyed by us all and we look forward to a happy new year in 2019.