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It’s going to be our second New Year’s Eve at home. Last year everything was closed, so we had little choice. Normally we’d start with some live music in the Sunstar, followed by a rollicking party in Rocks. Fireworks at midnight in the village, bell ringers in the street, and Jools Holland on telly.

This year, the bars are all open of course. However, it’s extremely busy, and no matter how many vaccinations we’ve had, it all feels a bit risky. So we’ll have a get-together at home, as we’ve done so often over the past couple of years. I popped down to Interlaken earlier while Val was working, and bought lots of nibbles. The fridge is full of beer and wine. And of course, we can still watch Jools on TV later.

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The rain finally came to an end overnight, and this morning the sun came out. Huge queue for the cable car.

In Wengen everything’s melting, but the valley gets very little sun at this time of year, so it’s still snowbound.

Val skied her kids down to the new restaurant at Brandegg this morning – it was their first excursion beyond the nursery slope.

Lots of people relaxing on deckchairs at the Figeller bar. It’s warm, and it feels like being at the beach.

More warm, sunny weather to come tomorrow apparently.

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It started raining yesterday afternoon, and Val’s kids had had enough by 3 o’clock. This morning it was still raining, and her lesson was over after just a couple of hours. Rain is tolerable if you have all the right gear, but for children on holiday it’s just miserable.

The village is awash with slush.

The rain is forecast to continue overnight, before it stops sometime tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

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Wengen is probably the ultimate kid-friendly ski village, what with no traffic and nursery slopes right in the centre. It’s no surprise therefore, that it’s very popular with families.

This is pretty much the only week of the season when all the European children are off school at the same time. It’s busy!

Of course the adults can go skiing too. The queue for the Männlichen cable car wasn’t too bad this morning.

Val has lessons all day every day this week, needless to say. We’ll get back to skiing when the kids go back to school next week.

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Christmas is a time for…. eating! Last night we had our festive roast. Colin tackles the joint.

Later on it’s time for Secret Santa. Emily loves this.

Colin did well, lots of beer and Heinz baked beans.

More beer for Ali.

This morning we took all the empties up to the recycling and headed for the cable car. We’re off up to Männlichen for lunch.

A very impressive selection of Christmas jumpers. We won’t need much for dinner tonight.

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In Switzerland, folk usually have their Christmas meal on Christmas Eve, and this year it suits us to do the same. The roast is in the oven, and the secret Santa sack is hanging up in the hall. Val has managed to make chalet Iltis look nice and festive.

Happy Christmas everyone!

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The Swiss booster programme recently got underway, so down we go to the community centre in Matten to get ours. Switzerland has one of the lowest vaccination rates in Europe, but you’d never guess that from the length of the queue.

Eventually we got inside, to find that we had to queue some more. Emily had her pocket Yahtzee with her. She fashioned a dice tray from paper, and we had a game while we waited. The Swiss were highly amused.

Eventually we were all done, and we got our precious certificates proving so. It was a long wait, but worthwhile.