Merry Christmas, everyone!

Or as they say in Irish, Nollaig Shona Duit!

We started out today with a little visit from Santa Clause, who brought candy and toys for my niece, and candy for the rest of us. My niece was very excited to tell us that Santa are all the cookies and drank all the milk, and also that the reindeer ate the oats we left outside.

Way to go, Santa!

We spent some time opening gifts and eating Christmas breakfast ( I had porridge and a sausage roll), then we hit the road to visit some sights in Killarney National park.

Killarney National park is just on the edge of the town of Killarney, and it is home to a lake, streams, forest, ruins, a manor house, and a waterfall. That last one was where started.

The waterfall is called Torc Waterfall, and it is an easy 5-10 min stroll to the main lookout.

The forest was so beautiful with ferns and moss, and it looked like a magic fairy tail forest.

My aunt found out yesterday that her warm puffer coat wasn’t actually waterproof, so she has on her puffer coat under a giant poncho. My niece thought she looked like a monster in this getup, and spent most of the day being afraid of it, but I think it’s awesome.

After I took millions of pictures along our very short walk, we ended up at the falls.

Where I took millions more.

There were stairs leading further up, but they looked slippery and were blocked off at the top. My niece loved running up and down them, and my brother in law got to chase her.

Also, we had a visitor on this trip. In this picture she is holding Nunny or Bunny, which is one of quite a few Nunny’s who made the journey across the pond with her, and has been welcome on all of our adventures.

At the bottoms of the waterfall I found some true Irish clover.

Once we’d explored around the waterfall, it was time to take off and head to a recommended viewpoint called Ladies View. There are lot of (aspiring) ladies in our party, so I thought we might as well enjoy the view.

On the way we past a cute church with a turquoise door, and a small castle ruin because: Ireland.

Also, some thoughts about the roads: they are tiny and winding. That’s all.

Here’s the overlook:

There was a telescope you could put a euro in to use, and we put in two euros before an adult looked through and realized it was out of focus. My niece enjoyed it anyway.

She and parents pretended to be Christmas explorers

And the rest of my family gamely donned their Santa hats for a Christmas picture.

At this point some of the grumbling started. One member of group, who will remain nameless but is wearing a giant poncho, began to grumble that the view looks just like the Snake River canyon in Idaho, then complained about the snacks. It was all in jest (and not wholly untrue) and we all laughed about it.

But it did highlight that we were all starting to feel ready for some Christmas dinner.

We had two more stops on our way back, and thought they would both be quick.

The first stop was Muckross House, an old Victorian Manor house. The inside was closed for Christmas, but we wandered the outside.

By the way, our niece loves Uncle Jimmy, and he is consistently her preferred adventure partner (aside from Nunny, of course)

After wandering the grounds and learning about English landowners lived in luxury while Irish farmers and laborers starved in the potato famine, we went to go find more Christmas joy at the ruins of an old abbey.

The abbey was gorgeous with a yew tree growing in the middle, and ended up being a surprise hit with everyone as there was so much to explore there.

It’s called Muckross Abbey, and it’s bit tucked away (it took us a few wring turns to figure out how to get there), but we’ll worth a visit. In case you can’t tell from all of the pictures, I really loved it.

Here’s the journey back to the car:

As is clear from the pictures, at one point the sun came out. It was a Christmas miracle.

At that point, we were all feeling our tummies rumbling, so we headed back to the cottage for some hors d’oeuvres (which included snowman boa buns)

And while the food was cooking, Uncle Jimmy worked with my sister and niece on a gingerbread train.

Check out the picture on the box vs the reality.

Then on to our full Christmas feast. We followed the tradition of opening Christmas crackers

And everyone wore their Christmas crown. We also each got a joke to tell, a game where we put a card on our foreheads and had to guess who we each were. We have a lot of learning to do about famous people in Britain.

It’s been a busy day, but we didn’t want to let Christmas go by without visiting downtown Killarney to see some Christmas lights.

The downtown was deserted and the lights were subdued because the shops were all closed, but it was still lovely. We made one more stop by St Mary’s church to see their giant lit up tree

Then it was off the bed.

Good night.

And Merry Christmas