Christmas is different now…
Good different, new different, my baubles are made out of biscuits and glitter-that-NEVER-STOPS-F*CKING-SHEDDING-EVER different. But certainly DIFFERENT.
And here, for the parents with small children at school, is precisely HOW:
- THE FATHER CHRISTMAS THREAT ACTUALLY WORKS. I now realise there is a specific window between age four and maybe about age seven where December becomes the most well behaved month OF THEIR LIFE. BOOM.
- But then you realise that you were foolish when they were babies and toddlers to have not meticulously thought out and carefully planned EXACTLY how the Father Christmas story would go… you have now unknowingly weaved yourself an elaborate and contradictory WEB OF FESTIVE LIES you cannot back out of… Every day I’m confronted with more specific and intricate questioning on the exact nature of Father Christmas and Co.’s shenanigans – ‘but how can the reindeer fly?’ ‘but we don’t have a chimney so how will he get in?’ ‘how old is he?’ ‘where will he park his sleigh while we’ve got scaffolding up?’ ‘Does he know Jesus?’ I’ve taken to generically answering ‘because he’s magical’ or in weaker moments shouting ‘BECAUSE BABY JESUS SAYS SO. OK.’and doing a shot of wine.
- Yes I’m afraid darling that Elfy-Mc-Elf-Face had a little accident at the end of last Christmas where he fell off his little shelf, someone set him on fire a couple of times and discarded his limp, charred body in the black fires of damnation and ETERNAL HELL (or something) so he won’t be visiting this year… Mummy will be relaxing in the evening and drinking wine instead. *runs away*
- Unfortunately they now notice when you steal their advent chocolate. And become seriously dick-ish about it.
- They make all their own christmas decorations now. With lots of glitter. Yay… *twitches*
- They also want to select and wrap their own gifts to you… and they WILL be watching when you open it on Christmas Day. Trust me. So get that ‘oh my god, how did you know I wanted another pasta necklace held together with PVA and human spit that isn’t designer shoes or a spa break on my own… again..’ face. And make it convincing.
- You suddenly realise you’re the only mum who hasn’t responded to the class WhatsApps about chipping in for vouchers. (shit.) And now realise you will have to buy your own teacher gifts… on 22nd December. When there are only Twiglets, a slightly wonky festive-scented Yankee Candle and litre bottles of Baileys left in Tesco Express.
- You create a beautiful festive hamper containing Twiglets, a slightly wonky Yankee Candle and some homemade christmas decorations… yay. (Whilst downing Baileys…*coughs*)
- You’ll also leave it until the last minute to write the class Christmas cards. Realising after three hours, at the point where you’ve managed about four cards, that you’ve have grossly underestimated this. You begin writing the envelopes to save time, then the names, then everything but their name, then by the last few you will have perfected the art of forging your 5-yr old’s handwriting in the hope you can get the shit done before ONE OF YOU DIES.
- Don’t forget to spend any of the spare time you do have when you’re not preparing the feast of the century, researching, purchasing and wrapping presents for the entire extended family on both times whilst sorting the house for guests and keeping up all of the mother-f@*cking magic for everyone – messaging everyone you know and saying that you ‘really must set a date to meet up in the New Year whilst doing literally nothing about it and realising you’ll probably never see another adult human ever again… you have social media for that.
- This is also a great time to bitch about the fact that you haven’t been invited to any wild and exciting events on New Years Eve… Before you get a text inviting to a wild and exciting New Years Eve event and go into a blind panic about having to find a believable excuse as to why you can’t attend as this would mean you changing out of your pyjamas, finding clean pants and stopping eating cheese.
- None of that really matters anyway, as you’ll basically just spend most of Christmas Day professing that you didn’t want anything for Christmas anyway, whilst wondering quite how in the name of shitty-Festive-fuck your husband managed to miss the 400 emails, texts, WhatsApps and real-life human conversations where you told him repeatedly what you wanted as a gift.
- And in spite of all of that – whilst you wear your pasta necklace, try not to look at how much glitter is now ground into the carpet and wonder where that litre bottle of Baileys disappeared to… you wouldn’t change any of it for the world…
#happychristmas
#maybeIdchangetheglitter
