Christmas – Tinsel and Tantrums!

I have always had a highly unrealistic picture of how Christmas should be – based on my love of ‘Little Women’ and ‘Little House on the Prairie’.So every year I always cherish a Little Hope that this Christmas my dream will come true! After all, the white snow icing on the picture cake came true!

I try hard to make it look effortless. Every single thing in my house gets decorated – mountains of ivy, fairy lights, red berries, antique paper snowmen go up everywhere. Oceans of food. Fields of presents. Rows of stockings. As the house gets glossier and more colourful, I do start to panic that the expectation I place on Christmas day may not live up to the high standards of my Christmas Wonderland!

The build up to the Big Christmas Event always works. Friends come round and always behave beautifully, they bring food, talk kindly and help me clear up and thank me with hugs. However I suppose we can all feel that the festive fairy dust can wear off when a mixture of family have tantrums amongst the tinsel on Christmas day! My daughter summed my feeling up by giving me a card after Christmas that featured the quote:

“Next to a circus there ain’t nothing that packs up and tears out faster than the Christmas spirit”

However with Christmas now behind us I hope to reflect on all the fun bits of Christmas day!

Here are my Festive Highlights:

New boyfriends over for Christmas – my youngest daughter Sally’s boyfriend joined us for Christmas! He was great fun and helped us see the fun and character of my own Mother through new less tired eyes as he thought she was a real laugh!

I had lovely presents from my girls! Pink converse boots, Downton Abbey on dvd among others…

My own Mother felt amazing and alive as I bought her a new glam outfit! Shame she was a little worse for wear by 6.30pm and had to have tea and cake and be put to bed!

We had a sing song – with song sheets – and we were all crying with laughter at our warbling.

On Boxing Day we all watched the film ‘The Nativity’ featuring Mr Maddens (Martin Freeman) as a primary school teacher.– we all cheered when we saw my Golden Rules up on the school wall! Famous!

I invited my oldest daughter’s boyfriend David’s parents for the first time. They are all lovely, but in typical not so ‘keeping up appearances’ style I offered them champagne only to return from the kitchen with half a bottle of warm cava – as we’d already guzzled all the good stuff! Embarrassing! We all had a warm glass of cava! What the heck!

Farewell Christmas!! Here’s to next year!