I’m sorry to say we have, once again, gone a bit feral. It happened a lot faster than in the first lockdown but I’m putting that down to the usual Christmas pressures and just the fact that we’ve had a lot of practice this year.
I had cold pizza for breakfast, no hangover in sight, and tried to pass it off as a continental in so much as it consisted of bread, ham and cheese.
Xander had Jelly Babies and cookies for lunch a couple of days ago, on the same day that I totally forgot to feed the other two lunch altogether. (In my defence we were on a long walk and Xander was getting grumpy in the backpack so I had to feed him all we had to hand.)
Bella has been working through her summer wardrobe - sundress and matching cap today (not sure how that purchase combo came about) - when she’s clothed at all, which is 50-50 at the mo.
And today, when Henry finished his dinner (“Mummy did you know this is the first time we’ve had vegetables in two days?”) he inexplicably climbed onto Andy’s shoulders and just sat there. The weirdest thing being that no one acknowledged it for a full two or three minutes.
Still, Christmas has been a blast! No seriously.
The run up was a bit manic - indeed no less mental than usual with dashes to the post office, a sellotape shortage, a one hour queue for the butcher to collect a turkey we didn’t even want, and wrapping, hiding then losing all the kids’ stocking presents - but from Boxing Day onwards it’s been great!
Day upon day of nothing but crisp, cold walks, eating food that doesn’t constitute a real meal, and peering outside every morning to see if anyone else has put their bins out.
I’ve also engaged in my absolute favourite Chrimbo Limbo pastime (thanks Dad for that shorthand, it’s duly been adopted) of clearing out cupboards. If we had a skip it’d be full but as it is we’ve done one run to the dump already and I’m busy posting 50% of our possessions on Facebook Marketplace. So cleansing.
That said, the sink in the utility is still full of muddy football boots and school shoes waiting to be washed, so still some way to go.
Christmas Day was strange, of course, but it only really fell down when we sat down to eat. I did a full Christmas dinner and hoped against hope that the kids would rise to the occasion but, as ever, they spent the meal arguing about who was going to light - and then blow out - the candles, loudly identifying every item on their plates that they weren’t prepared to eat, asking if they could have pudding yet, spilling drinks left, right and centre, crying when they didn’t win the cracker, then asking to get down after 20 minutes. No different to any other meal here, and no reason why it should be, but still. I possibly had slightly too high expectations.
This evening I realised it’s New Year’s Eve tomorrow. For what it’s worth. We are currently discussing whether we’re going to stay up till midnight, but as Xander wakes up at 5am I don’t know that I necessarily need to sit (read: doze) on the sofa till 12.15am with the same (albeit very agreeable) person I’ve looked at every single evening for the last 282 days, just to be grumpy about it the next day because I’m so tired.
Also I don’t think this year deserves to be acknowledged as being over. It is only giving it the attention it so clearly craves. I think it’s best if we all ignore it, go to bed, and hope to wake up in a world where Marty McFly has gone back to the 1960s and single-handedly prevented the conception of the entire Tory cabinet. (We watched Back to the Future today so that’s a topical, if random, dream for me.)
And you know what, I started writing this to the sounds of Steps presenting a painfully awkward show called Step into 2021 on Radio 2 (or maybe it was Steps into 2021 - either way it was very contrived and scripted, even the bit where they started laying into equally crap rival bands) and as I finish Trevor Nelson is playing the splendid Here Comes the Hotstepper.
I’m taking this as a sign: things are looking up already.
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