Some Hope

I guess I don’t give my heart to Christmas completely. 

As we put up the decorations, I think about how long it will take me to fetch them down again on January 6^th and moderate my swags accordingly. 

When I buy gifts for the children, they aren’t luxuries.   I try to get useful things that I probably should have bought them anyway.  In our house, Christmas has become the Festival of New Pants.

I buy my Brussels sprouts (and indeed everything else) from Morrisons, not Waitrose – the Christmas meal will be pleasant, but would leave Mary Berry with that puzzled disappointed look we have come to know.

Perhaps I hold back because I’m afraid the festival will let me down. 

Don’t get me wrong, each year Christmas sends me into a complete tailspin of organisational frenzy, but it is partly because we have so many significant family birthdays in December.  And trips to grandparents in Cornwall and Northumberland to arrange.  Not to mention the complications of a Christmas dinner which must cater for a meat eater and a vegan, and every ideological regime in between.

However, I have reached the “no longer care” plateau quite early this year and am even pursuing other exciting projects such as replacing our double-glazing.

And yet part of me is waiting for Christmas to tiptoe up behind me and surprise me with a joyful hug, as it does most years.