This year has been a hard one for so many of us.
COVID-19 stripped us of our togetherness and just before Christmas I lost the most wonderful cousin. Although not to COVID his passing brought home so many emotions and sadness that only impacted on the emotions I was already feeling. He will be missed beyond words.
Family is a massive part of my life and with my parents preparing to move to the coast several hours away this festive season was going to be a hard one knowing its the last one with them only a few streets away.
Things got harder when the COVID restrictions were changed at the last minute and we had to cut our festive plans to just seeing people on Christmas Day meaning we haven’t seen my sister or brother in law as that was planned for Christmas Eve.
However, even with sadness on the lead up to Christmas itself we have had the most wonderful Christmas. For me being together with my husband and kids for a whole 3 days has been amazing. It has been something that we normally don’t do so spending 3 days in pyjamas napping, playing and eating together has been super.
I think this year and having so much uncertainty and sadness has changed us for the better. We appreciate the small things so much more. I got to spend some time watching films and napping with Jacob while we held hands and fell asleep.
Our Christmas day involved at least Jacob and I staying in PJ’s all day and only changing to clean sets after a bath. We ate christmas lunch out of pyrex dishes as I am lacking in serving dishes and I served gravy from a jug .. I drank diet coke from the can and it was an epic day with no pressure or stress.
I got the chance to play video games with Joshua while he taught me to play and the rules of the game and still managed to beat me.
Ollie and I took our foot of the gas and just enjoyed having no fixed plans for the 3 days. We ate well and napped at the drop of a hat. We stood on Lego bricks and dodged Nerf bullets.
We didnt undertake any festive outings or visits and have spent the whole of December besides working being very laid back about the whole festive season.
What We Will Now Do Every Year
This year has taught us so much and I am going to take some of the things I learnt into our subsequent festive seasons.
I will continue to buy in the sales through the year to ensure gifts are wrapped and tagged early. After nearly a decade of grumbling Ollie has finally seen method in what he perceives as my madness when everything was wrapped tagged and ready to go as we got to the end of November! No more undue pressure for me when in fact large local lockdowns were occurring through November as 99.9% of our Christmas had already been sorted. This leaves me a more relaxed December and I love it.
Preempting what the kids might need for school hampers/raffles and the like has meant no made dash extra trips to the shops. Eliminating the need for unnecessary shopping trips! Get in a bottle or two extra and a few boxes of mince pies extra and it means we have ticked off what we need early.
Eat only what you actually want to eat. Every year tons of food in most households must end up in landfill because we all notoriously overbuy for the festive period.
This year I made a list this year of what meals we were planning and for each what we actually wanted on the obligatory beige buffet so we only purchased foods we all ate so no waste occurred.
We will be planning in some festive outdoor events for next year. We had booked in for the Christmas at Wollaton Hall this year but had to rearrange when Joshua’s class had to isolate. We were due to go on Saturday but being in tier 4 we have now had our trip cancelled. Next year we are going to book in early if we can or even book somewhere closer to home.
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