It is still November right?

How is everyone doing? Are you all ok or are some of you, like me, feeling overwhelmed for no particular reason.

I do not know why but for some reason this week I have started to worry about Christmas. Its creeping up on us now and I have not had my usual prompt to begin my preparations. My prompt was cancelled this year…bloody COVID-19!

Anyway, I have made a start this week. I have begun preparing Christmas cakes. The fruit is soaking as per Mary Berry’s instructions. I planned this particularly well as the fruit has to soak for three days before proceeding with the rest of the recipe. Perfect excuse to do the “messy bit” when the children are safely occupied at school.

I have tried numerous times to enjoy baking with my children in the past. Inevitably I end up kicking them out of my kitchen because children, as we all know, tend to leave a trail of destruction in their wake which we, as the neat freaks that we are, need to clean up. The children really enjoy baking with Mummy but Mummy generally ends up frantic at the amount of flour and icing sugar that is settling on every surface and the egg that has been dropped on the floor.

Not to mention the danger that is posed by the red hot oven which is essential for the task. The anxiety it triggers for me, at times, doesn’t bear thinking about so to alleviate my fears of baking I have taken the easy way out and timed it so the children helping would not be an option this year.

When I am looking at my social media accounts I am seeing that a lot of people are putting up their Christmas decorations now. I can understand the mentality behind this. It is 2020 and 2020 has been a truly crappy year for everyone however, I can say with absolute certainty that I will not be embarking on decorating my home until the first weekend in December at the earliest. There are two reasons for this.

Do not get me wrong, I love decorating my home for Christmas, its exciting, fun and I try to make it as magical as possible for the children. When they were younger I would put all of the decorations up in the evening once they had gone to sleep so that it was all done for when they woke up the next morning. I took great joy in witnessing my unsuspecting children walking in to the living room and seeing the look of bewilderment on their faces. Do you know the look I mean? The look of “what has happened here? Where did that come from?”

It was always the Christmas fairy who had visited while we were all sleeping that had decorated our house using her magic. In my experience It works brilliantly for enhancing the magic of Christmas for children. Until the children learn about being helpful and decide that they want to help the Christmas fairy by putting up the tree and decorating it themselves because the Christmas fairy “forgot”.

Between you and me, the Christmas fairy didn’t forget. The Christmas fairy had been up until three am, calculated that if she went to bed now she may get four hours sleep (if she was really lucky) before the children woke up and simply ran out of steam.

The intention had been that the fairy would make a follow up visit the following night to finish the job because no one likes looking at an unevenly decorated tree, whether it be top heavy, bottom heavy or one sided with ornaments. Everyone wants to see a lovely evenly decorated tree, the sort of tree that only the “fairy” could deliver.

To be fair the children always say how hard the Christmas fairy works to do all of the decorating so it isn’t fair that she has to do the tree as well. So Mummy needs to stop being lazy and help them so that the Christmas fairy can have a rest, even though she is tired because no matter how tired Mummy is feeling the Christmas fairy must be even more tired.

The logic is very sweet and is reassuring to me that I am raising my children to be caring people but the Christmas fairy would much prefer to do it herself. As it stands the Christmas fairy still comes to deal with the tree but all she has to do is rearrange the decorations rather than work with a blank canvas.

This year the Christmas fairy is evidently fully booked until December. Which is good for me because it doesn’t take very long for me to start finding the decorations irritating. The lights are ok but the glitter that seems to constantly be falling of the decorations begins to drive me mad after a couple of weeks.

I must now make a confession. I am that person who puts the decorations up as late as possible and takes them down as early as possible. Now I am not talking about taking the decorations down on Boxing Day but normally my decorations are packed away by New Years Eve. I like to know that the house is all set for the upcoming year. For me, that means the decorations have to be put away, the house needs to have been adequately cleaned from top to bottom and the washing has to be up to date. I am superstitious and as such I cannot do any washing on New Years Day in case you wash a member of the family away. This may well be that I am alone with that sentiment but I am certainly not taking any chances for 2021.

Of course, there is still a lot of uncertainty surrounding Christmas at the moment. I have been reflecting on the impact of Lockdown 2.0 so far on my life and I must say I have come to the sad realisation that it hasn’t had a huge impact on my day to day life so far. That being said I know it would have a very large impact on me if we are still in this position at Christmas.

Christmas is a time for family and friends. For the past eight years I have enjoyed spending Christmas at home, preparing Christmas dinner for my family, including parents, aunts, uncles or whoever would like to join us and I find it rather sad to think that it may not be possible to do the same this year. I am, however, appreciative of the fact that my children are still young and I am fortunate that I will not be separated from them.

I hope that the lockdown will have been lifted as the potential impact of being alone at Christmas can be devastating. This disease as well as the restrictions that have been put in place has taken so much away from everyone already.

There are days that our attempts to stay safe and follow the guidelines are futile. It takes some time before there seems to be any sign of improvement and the days start to merge in to one. I am following the guidelines in the hope that restrictions will have been eased by Christmas.

All I am really concerned about this year is that we are all fit and well. The period between Christmas and New Year tends to be a time where I reflect on the year that has past. I do not think I will be doing that this year as it seems to have been a year with little to do other than reflect on what has happened or is happening in the world.

No doubt December will be filled with the usual stresses and worries that all previous Decembers have been in an attempt to have the best Christmas possible, this year more so than most.

I cannot help but admire all who have faced adversity, especially this year, and are doing their best to keep going regardless. There have been quite a few people who have stepped up this year and made a real difference whether that be through exercise, meditation, charity fundraising or just by providing a platform for people to talk about how they feel and, if needed, provide people with valuable resources to help them along the way.

As rubbish as 2020 has been, I plan on reflecting on the positives that I have witnessed this past year. It is certainly one that will be remembered for the good, the bad and the ugly memories that it has given us regardless of what they may be. For me the most prominent memories of 2020 so far are going to be walking like a Lego person following PE with Joe, home schooling fails, socially distanced birthday celebrations, daily video calls with my family members, Pimms, and lots and lots of dancing like nobody is watching.