It All Seems a Bit Unnecessary

And so, another week has turned and it’s Saturday again. A cold and wet Saturday, there was even a sprinkling of the white stuff on top of cars parked in the street this morning. There’s no doubt that winter is coming, and I’ve even had to reluctantly admit that Christmas is dangerously close, so I suppose I’d better do something about it. Miss F and I have agreed to only do stockings for one another his year, although I am buying her a new mattress for her university room so technically I guess that is a present as well. On Wednesday, I spent a couple of hours going around the shops and finding bits and pieces to fill her stocking with. I even bought Christmas cards and wrapping paper and had a discussion with my mother about Christmas Day and food.

It’s not that many years ago that by the end of November I would have finished all my Christmas shopping. Indeed, shopping for Miss F would have been started the moment her birthday celebrations in August were over. Plans would have been drawn up, lists written, and complicated schedules worked out and mapped out. Back then, I seemed to have more people to buy for, more money to spend, and more events planned for the festive period. But now. I find it hard to bring myself to care. I’ve always believed that Christmas is the ultimate in diminishing returns. When you’re a child, it seems such a magical time of year. There’s the tree and all the decorations, mysterious parcels appearing under the tree, parties and gatherings, carol services, and the school Nativity play, the pantomime and family visits. None of which, as a child, you need to do anything about because they all just happen.

Then there was the day itself, and again, it just happened with minimum input from you. Lovely food and drink, presents, and games, and special TV programmes and films. All fun, and all magical.

Then you get older, and year by year, you are expected to do more to contribute to the festivities. Presents are no longer bought for you to give to friends and family, you must shop and pay for them yourself. You are expected to help with food preparation and clearing up afterwards. But it’s still fine, the bulk of the work falls upon your mum’s shoulders – who, strangely enough, doesn’t seem to care that much about Christmas.

Then you become a grown-up, with a place of your own, but still, for a few years, it’s okay because you go home for Christmas, even split the days between your family and your partner’s family. Then you have children of your own and the number of presents you must select, buy, and wrap explodes out of all proportion. You decide to hold Christmas at your home because it will be easier with the kids, and that’s when it all goes pear-shaped. Because you hadn’t realised quite how much hard work Christmas is.

For most busy working women with families who expect them to simply make Christmas happen, the planning begins in September when the kids go back to school and from then on it’s three months of unrelenting work, worry, and preparation. Who is coming on what day? What food and drink do you need to buy? What presents are you buying? How are you going to deliver them? What’s the last posting date for Auntie Sue in Australia and Cousin Karen in America? What colour theme will the table be this year? Will you be able to find napkins in just the right shade? And on and on and on, until by the week of Christmas most women are exhausted, gibbering wrecks, desperately ferrying kids around from the school party to the carol service and the Nativity play. Tiredness is your constant companion, yet you lie awake at night muttering shopping lists under your breath and wondering if you shouldn’t get up and go and do the shopping at 3am. At least no one else would be in the shop. So, you do, and the shop is packed because every other woman had the same idea.

I remember Miss F and I hitting Tesco two weeks before Christmas to do the big shop one year. We had a hot chocolate in the restaurant first to keep our strength up, then chose a big trolley and worked our way around the aisles trying to find everything on our list.

It was chaos. Frazzled looking women were having muttered arguments with bewildered husband’s who just couldn’t seem to understand that NO, that stuffing will not do, and YES, it does bloody matter. A fight broke out in the chiller section over the last pack of pigs in blankets and whilst the two women were oh so politely offering it to one another, the tone in their voices indicating if the other woman took it then all hell would rain down, I sent little Miss F in like a skinny ninja to sneak the pack from off the shelf and it was in our trolley and we were gone before anyone caught onto what had happened.

It took two hours and cost over £200 and looking back, I wonder the heck I was thinking of. It’s just one day! I didn’t need all the treats and sweets and enough cheese to build a wall that I ended up buying. I remember a friend of mine once saying that during the run-up to Christmas she was always saying – don’t touch that, it’s for Christmas – then after Christmas plaintively saying – will someone please eat that up before it goes bad!

I remember I always used to be ill at Christmas. Right up until Christmas Eve I wouldn’t have time to be sick, too busy running myself ragged planning, shopping, wrapping, cooking, charging around visiting and delivering presents, to even contemplate the idea of being ill. Then on Christmas Eve I would finally sit down with a little drink in hand, look about the picture-perfect Christmas I had created and think – yes, it’s all done, everything is perfect, now I can relax and enjoy Christmas after all my hard work. But my body would say – okay, about that, now you’ve stopped here’s a nasty cold for you or a chest infection, or a sore throat, or even all three! Enjoy! Oh, and Merry Christmas.

So much excess, so much food, and drink, and money wasted on stuff you don’t need. For several years now, I’ve been scaling Christmas down to the point where I don’t buy for anyone other than nearest and dearest. Last year, we didn’t even bother having a tree. There seemed little point. Miss F was working Christmas Day and then I was working Boxing Day, we were barely going to be home. Of course, things didn’t quite work out that way with the UK going into tier four restrictions on Boxing Day so no work for me, and then the country going back into lockdown in early January.

We are having a tree this year because Miss F has requested one. But unlike most of the rest of the planet who seem to be competing as to who can get their decorations up the soonest, our tree won’t be going up until the 17^th of December. Miss F doesn’t come home from university until the 16^th and would never forgive me if I decorated the tree without her. I have a week’s holiday from the 13^th of December onwards, so I will probably decorate the house before I go to collect Miss F from university though, just to get it done.

The plan was for me to drive up on the 16^th, taking Miss F’s new mattress with me, pack up the things she wished to bring home for the holidays, then drive back the same day. But it is a long drive and with it getting dark so early I wasn’t keen on motorway driving in dark, potentially bad weather, conditions. Looking at hotels close to the university, I found a Premier Inn less than a mile away which will only cost me £50 for the night. I have booked myself a room for the 15^th which is Miss F’s last day of university. The plan is I will drive up early afternoon, go to the university and somehow manage to heave a four-foot rolled heavy mattress up four flights of stairs, and leave the boxes and suitcase I’ll be taking for her to pack her stuff in. Then I’ll go to the hotel, check-in, rest, and relax, and freshen up before popping back to the university to collect Miss F and her best friend she wants me to meet. A table has been booked at the restaurant next to the hotel for seven that evening for the three of us to have a relaxed dinner. The girls will then either walk back to the university if the weather is fine, or we’ll get them a taxi.

Neither the hotel, nor the restaurant does breakfast, so I will have to throw myself on the mercy of Miss F to provide sustenance when I go back to the university the next morning to pack up her things and then head on back home. Hopefully not get stuck in too much holiday traffic and make it back before dark.

We then have three days together to collect our tree, relax, and do Christmas things, before I am back to work for two short days on Monday and Tuesday, then I have four days off over Christmas before going back to work on Boxing Day.

I hate working Boxing Day. It’s one of the worst things about my job and it seems so unnecessary. It’s not even as if we are that busy, but because our competition is open on Boxing Day, and many of the other stores in our retail park are, then we will be open as well so all those people who hate being home for longer than one day and absolutely must go shopping the day after Christmas can pile into our shop – and never spare a thought for the poor bloody staff who would love to be able to stay home with their family.

I have my parents coming for Christmas Day, possibly my brother as well, and an invitation has been extended to the lodger to join us because I honestly don’t think he has anywhere else to go. Whether he accepts the invitation or not is entirely up to him. It has been given because the thought of someone being alone at Christmas is sad, not when they don’t have to be.

So, that’s Christmas planned. Low key, not going crazy, and certainly not wasting money I don’t have – especially as my pay packet at the end of November was a bit light due to having three weeks off with Covid.

Speaking of which, my booster jab is booked for the 4^th of December, and I hope my reaction to it is mild this time.

I returned to work on Monday after my three weeks off and had two very long days which left me exhausted and going to bed at nine on Tuesday evening and sleeping for twelve hours – unheard of for me – and very relieved I then had four days off to rest. This virus wiped the floor with me, and I still don’t feel right. I’m tired, congested, and my sense of smell and taste have yet to return. Hope they do before Christmas or it will be a bland and boring one, foodwise.

One last item of news – to celebrate Black Friday and the fact that it was published exactly one year ago – Black Ice, my fun and fast-paced retelling of Snow White, can be bought for the super low price of £1.99 or local currency equivalent, eBook version obviously. The sale ends at midnight on the 30^th of November, so why not click on its link on the books page and snag yourself a copy for Christmas.

That’s it for now. Sorry about my demented ramblings about Christmas – it’s this time of year, it always makes me go a little peculiar.

Take care.

Julia Blake