All I want for Christmas... is stew!

What a fabulous way to round off the year and indeed the decade! As this was our last GoodGym run before a two week Christmas break, it took on a distinctly festive feel, with fancy dress galore, and a Christmassy task to go with it. There were Christmas jumpers, hats, lights, full christmassy lycra, antlers, and even a (sort of) flashing red nose!

We welcomed Treasa to her first ever group run, and Caroline joined our growing list of task owners who've come down and got involved in the running side of things as well.

We also welcomed a lovely GG York contingent, with Egg and Lizzie making a long-awaited return, and Leanne making it two weeks in a row! This also marked Leanne's 499th Good deed, which is absolutely incredible. Get ready to give her a massive cheer when she logs a coach run on Friday!

We warmed up with a quick game of 'Who (or what) am I?' which basically involved running round and then finding out what Christmas item had been stuck to your back by asking questions - while doing star jumps of course! With everyone suitably warmed up, and talking about their favourite ever Christmas present, we were on our way.

Carol had already set off with the run/walk group, so with Rach looking after the backmarking, we set about trying to catch them up. It was a slightly soggy run down, but spirits were high and there seemed to be even more happy conversation than usual. Caroline was mightily impressed and we hadn't even done anything yet!

"It's just such a lovely group!" Caroline, Task owner, TCV Hollybush

We arrived to find everything perfectly laid out for us, and after a bit of history about the organisation and the building (they've been doing conservation projects here fro over 40 years!) we were given our tasks.

• Heading into the barn to hang some paper chains and other decorations
• Sorting gifts into hamper items and pass the parcel, and then wrapping the parcels
• Chopping vegetables for a stew

The group quickly split up, and before we could even say go, the choppers had their hands washed and were grabbing the bags of veg. As always it was a flurry of activity, but this time with added Christmas tunes courtesy of Riobhne.

Over at the pass the parcel end of the table, the gang were sorting through some questionable items, and working out what would be go best in the hamper and what should be wrapped up. There was a vicious rumour that pass the parcel had to be explained to one of our GoodGymers, but further investigation proved inconclusive.

Over in the freezing cold barn, the team were tackling what appeared to be the worlds longest paper chains, made exclusively from old editions of gardeners world. Apparently some of the volunteers were unwilling to cut through Monty Don's face when preparing the paper chains, which sparked a whole conversation about gardening celebs - (at least everyone seems to know Alan Titchmarsh even if they're not all aware of Monty Don!)

Rach was getting really into the decorating, first getting herself wrapped up in paperchains, before literally grabbing whatever she could find and trying to hang it around the room:

"I'm just going to stick it in there!" Rach aggressively decorating with any random Christmas items

With loads of paper chains hung and the decorations running out of hooks, Freya from TCV found some additional hooks and wire for us to hang the remaining items. Anne quickly found out that her family's name for wire twist ties was not widely used:

"We just call them wire wiggles in our house" Anne

With a whopping 5 tubs of vegetables chopped, 3 hampers lovingly prepared and two parcels wrapped (I think there could have been a song in there somewhere) we were almost ready to go. There was just time for us to all congregate in the barn for a photo, with the Christmas excitement leading to an outbreak of silliness, with everyone keen to make sure the GoodGym t-shirts were on show for the photos.

"Get your double G's out!", pretty much everyone finding that the Christmas excitement was too much to handle!

We started out for home, with Tom taking the lead for a faster group, Egged on by the GG York trainer. The lead group flew up the hill, and were soon well out of sight, but the rest of us were just happy to 'forget' to press the button at the road junctions for a bit of an extra rest.

We all had a quick stretch before heading into the Book Club for a well deserved mince pie!

Thanks everyone for an absolutely fantastic start to GoodGym in Leeds, and here's to making it even better in 2020!! Have a great Christmas and New Year, and I'll see you all in January.