Family together?

So, Offspring Junior has come home for the Christmas vacs. It's good to have him around the house again. He's shown us some of the work he's done during his first term at University in his Multi-media degree course and it's very impressive. I always knew he had a penchant for video presentation and it's really coming through now! He seems to be enjoying the course at Uni and is also making new friends on campus as well as keeping up with his old mates back home. Living only forty-odd miles from home he is able to keep in touch with the latter, regularly arranging via Skype and MSN to come home for a boozy night with some of them (at our house!)
Needless to say he has brought a pile of washing to do because he doesn't have to pay laundrette costs at home but we are insisting that at least he operates the machine himself instead of leaving his mum or me to do it for him. Can't have him getting lazy at home - he can keep that for when he's at Uni.
So it was looking good for another Christmas Day when we would all be together. But - Offspring Senior has decided to spend his Christmas with the newly-affianced Steph. I don't really blame him but it will be the first time we haven't spent the festive day together as a complete family - the fledglings seem finally to be fleeing the nest . . . ah well, such is life.
You can always tell when he is in love - his entries on his blog www.andi-mcaleer.co.uk get less and less frequent (at time of posting the last entry was November 24 - it used to be almost every day) because she's probably saying "Get away from that stupid computer and give me more of your time".
Hopefully we will see the two of them as the proverbial "item" over New Year. I suppose that's better in some ways because I have more time off over New Year than Christmas. It will be a drag in work on Boxing Day - the only customers we will get will be those who stupidly think we will be having a post-Christmas sale and those who want to return unwanted presents. Merry blooming Christmas!