Anyone who knows me knows I’m not a fan of Christmas. You could say I’m a bit of a bar humbug.
There are plenty of reasons I hate Christmas, maybe one day I’ll write them all down, but my biggest bug bear of Christmas is the pressure of making that one day perfect.
I’ve been very lucky that for the past 10 years I have been able to hide behind my work and blame the shop for the lack of Xmas spirit.
It always started way too early in the shop.
I’d spend every weekend in December running workshops, mossing wreaths and making bows. The hours got longer and longer, until the final week we’d be pulling 20 hour days and customers just got more and more demanding the closer the big day got.
I used to have to turn down any invites to drinks dos or parties, I’d always miss my mums birthday celebrations no matter how much I urged her to arrange it the month before so I didn’t let her down yet again, our staff party’s were unthinkable during the month of December, and the last few days running up our friends would call in dressed in their best clothes, celebrating the end of work and heading off to enjoy the revelries, whilst we looked more and more bedraggled, our body’s aching, hands cracked and sore and absolutely dead on our feet.
There was even one year I refused to put up any decorations in my home.
Kids were about 4 and 6 at the time, and because I was visiting mum at Christmas I just refused to put up the tree.
As soon as we’d finished in the shop Christmas Eve I’d be loading the car and driving over to my mums, so if the kids wanted to feel Xmasy, they just needed to come down stair to see mummy in the shop, as that was always dec’d from the middle of November!!
The only bit I’ve enjoyed about Xmas the last few years has been my boxing days. The kids go to their dads and I always miss them on that day as all my fella and I do is sit in the sofa, eat and snuggle up in our jammas to watch movies and always feel my babies should be there with their grumpy mum who’s neglected them all month.
But this year I can’t hide behind the shop, I don’t want to be a bad mummy with my kids missing out on all the fun of the season, and after all I’m married to captain bloody Christmas!!
Captain Christmas, who has his Christmas songs on his iPod all year round, who’s biggest highlight of the season is getting rat arsed on the sofa and watching muppets Christmas carol and who is the biggest kid alive when it comes to anything festive.
And I’m fed up of letting them down with my grumpiness
So this year I’m going to embrace it.
Im going to do something festive for those I love every day in the lead up to big J’s birthday. I’ll celebrate my mums birthday, I’ll Dec the halls and I’ll not be grumpy!
But come Christmas Day, I’m not making any effort at all. it doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be us, enjoying each other’s company with no pressure to be anything but us.
I’m just going to put my feet up, sit on the sofa with my babies and my funny husband, eat, drink and chill out.