I'm fed up with Christmas already. So far we've had two Christmas Fairs and two nativities.
Actually I use the word nativity advisedly. The first one was Jack and Jill Go to Look for Jesus and Meet Nursery Characters (Why does that remind me of Terry Wogan's Janet and John sketches? ) en route, so it had precious all to do with the Christmas story. When Mary did pitch up at the end, she looked mightily pissed off and sucked her thumb. The second one yesterday was loosely based on The Night Before Christmas, but as all the children chosen to read parts of the poem spoke incredibly softly, I was hard pushed to tell what was going on. Jaded, qui moi?
For the first two performances I was required to make a star and a snowflake. Making costumes just isn't my thing (along with cutting and sticking it is total anathema to me. Lest you think I fall totally down in devoted Mummy stakes, I would add that I do a mean line in baking... well sometimes.)
Tomorrow nos 1&2 are taking part in the Brownie Christmas Play at the United Reformed Church on Sunday, for which I had to produce two angel costumes. Being as we have already done the Christingle at the CofE church and no2 has to go the catholic church for her holy Joe classes we must be the most ecumenical family around these parts...
By Wednesday when I embarked on the angel costumes I was feeling mighty pissed off with the whole thing. Such feelings were compounded by no 2 coming back from Brownies and telling me my efforts were rubbish.
Indeed they were rubbish. I am crap at sewing. And trying to twine tinsel round bits of vaguely wingshaped garden wire had proved pretty much beyond me. However, at least I had tried. And given that the costume is going to be seen for oooh, about thirty seconds probably, frankly I didn't give a damn, and said so, the which response sent no 2 off in floods of tears. Good going, Mummy. (More and more I resemble the old hag who runs the orphanage in Annie, shouts at the children all the time and sings mournfully of wishing she were surrounded by pearls and instead being surrounded by little girls... I so know how she feels.)
Luckily, Daddy rode to the rescue. And being as he is much better at this sort of thing then I am, and actually seems to enjoy it, I left them to it. Which is just as well as now their angel costumes will look somewhat superior instead of rather crap...
Next week we have a carol concert to attend, and on Friday they break up from school. I have a whole week BEFORE Christmas and I will be all Christmassed out. Plus them being off so soon means I can't get any shopping done. And I have barely made a dent in it is far.
However, since the year no 4 ended up in hospital just before Christmas, I refuse point blank to get excited about Christmas shopping. So long as you get something to put in their stocking it really doesn't matter all that much. Besides, I tend to think in a lofty, holier then thou, superior kind of way, They have far too much stuff as it is. It will be good for their souls to get less this year.
Of course, the reality is that come the end of next week I will be panicking. And thereafter indulge in what I like to call bulimic shopping. An inevitable byproduct of parenthood.
You rush out with no time to spare, and see lots of lovely shiny things, all of which look like a Must Have item. So you compulsively and greedily grab stuff off the shelves, conscious all the time of a ticking clock. Your heart is racing, you feel sick to the pit of your stomach, as you fear, somewhere out there, there ARE BETTER THINGS YOU COULD BE BUYING - only you don't have time to look. Such fears are allayed in the moment of purchase - a quick fix equal to any sugar rush. You get home and shove everything in a cupboard so no one sees it, only getting it out on Christmas Eve (when, if like me, you start your wrapping at about midnight). It is only then, that you realise that what you have bought is utter rubbish, and if only you had stayed that extra five minutes you could have bought the perfect present.
Oh well there's always next year...
Mince pie anyone??
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Monday, December 05, 2005
And When she Got There, the Cupboard was Bare
As usual, we had a busy weekend. Starting with the anticipated and long awaited arrival of plasterers to plaster our new conservatory. I use the word new advisedly. As come January it will have been in place two years. But before we could plaster we had to lay floorboards (actually that was done fairly quickly) and then we had to get some doors made. Being as we wanted wooden doors, and being as the aperture is enormous, we had to wait over a year for said doors because of lack of money, time and being able to find someone to do it. Eventually we got the doors in this summer, and then the plastering became a matter of some urgency, as without it we can't have heating in there, and it being now winter, the place gets rather parky...
The plasterers were due to arrive at 7.45 which I'm sure you'll agree is an ungodly hour even for parents of four (seeing as we have now educated our offspring to go downstairs and make themselves breakfast we do occasionally get a bit of extra shuteye at the weekend). So Spouse dutifully got up at 7.30 to let them in. But whereas pyromaniac builder mate (who has built so much of our house and garden he takes a proprietorial interest in things) pitched up to make sure the plasterers knew what they were doing, plasterers came there none.
So I trotted off to do the ballet run with all the sprogs in tow (older two moaning wildly as they got to miss Dick and Dom in Da Bungalow - the one result of me having to take them out) while Spouse and PBM made their third cup of tea and waited...
...and waited...
and waited...
While no 3 was in her lesson Spouse rang up to say that the plasterers had done a no show, so he agreed to come and meet me . This created a conflict of emotions. While I was mightily pissed off with the plasterers, I was also damned glad to have an extra pair of hands to help separate my warring offspring (ten minutes in the Fame School is usually enough to send them demented).
As I had thought I was out for the duration with the children, I had promised them a visit to Father Christmas in our local Lifestyle Centre (no I don't know what that is either, but it comprises a library, a gym, a doctor's surgery and a cafe, with shops underneath and flats above). Santa duly visited, it was a quick trip to Macs for a nutritional lunch (which was just as well as we had no food to speak of at home) before taking no 2 to her gym class and no 1 to her jazz dance class.
Spouse took the little ones home and I managed to get in a bit of Christmas shopping. Although we are now in December Christmas hasn't quite penetrated my radar yet, and I realise that it should, it really should as the kids have a WHOLE WEEK off before Christmas, so shopping opportunities are going to be severely limited from now on...
Then it was back home and out again to no 4's Christmas Fair. Part of me fights with the idea of spending any money at her school as it is a private one and her nursery fees cost me a fortune. But on the other hand, it was quite nice to go along to one of these things not being involved at all, other then to part with some money. The children managed to liberate the contents of my purse within minutes as they all wanted to buy tat for each other for Christmas. And this being a private school , the quality of tat was rather more pricey then I'm used to from the fair at their school... I did manage to get some half price cakes though, which was handy as the cupboard being bare meant I had nothing for pudding. It was a scrabble to find something for tea, but Spouse managed to knock up ham sandwiches and some rather limp looking cucumber.
By this time it was too late to get to Sainsbury's so I was on the verge of suggesting we got a takeaway, when we had a phone call from our best friends, they were at a loose end, could they come over? Since said best friends have recently come back from Spain after an absence of three years, so we are still pretty excited about seeing them, so of course we said yes. Come and eat, I said recklessly, before adding, sorry the place is a bit of a mess... (Needless to say my work of the previous weekend had been swiftly undone and the place was a pigsty once again). Deciding that tolerant and all as they are even they might balk at the chaos, we swiftly charged round getting the sprogs to put their tat away.
Then we had a moment when we considered what to eat. Spouse disappeared to the deep freeze and came back with some steaks and prawns. I rummaged about in the fridge and came up with four mushrooms, a pepper, some spinach and an onion. I knew we had rice, so we could just about manage a stirfry. It's what you call Make It Up As You Go Along Cooking. Luckily our friends didn't seem to mind (the bucketloads of red wine probably helped) and we stayed up way too late chewing the fat.
Net result was Sunday morning produced the hangover from hell. I had to get up and take no1 to a birthday party, which meant rising far too early in the pitiful state I was in. After managing to dig out enough toast to feed if not an army, at least all of our guests, they departed and I contemplated making lunch. With - er - what? We were far too exhausted to even contemplate supermarket shopping, so this time, I persuaded everyone to have soup and bread, which seemed to do the trick. But what to do for dinner? Normally we have a roast and Spouse, (whose German mother has left him with a paranoia about not having enough food in the house) usually stocks the freezer with dozens of the damned things, but inconveniently we seem to have eaten them all. I do manage to rustle up some lamb chops though. And we have a few carrots, plus some potatoes and frozen peas. That'll do.
Before feeding the mob though, we have to go to the Christingle service. Being (as Spouse prosaically puts it) a left footer, I hadn't come across this particular tradition in my childhood, but then Spouse who is a Proddy Dog, hasn't either. Anyway for the uninitiated, the service revolves around getting an orange, with four cocktail sticks in which sweets and raisins are placed. Needless to say it is rather a popular event in our house. Mercenary? My children? As far as I understand it, the orange represents the world, the sticks the four seasons, the sweets, the harvest and a red ribbon around it, Christ's blood. Oh and you also get a candle which is the light of Christ. Amazingly in these child-cosseted times we actually got to light the candles in church (albeit with stern warnings about safety and wild disclaimers everywhere).
Once the service was over (at which the offspring behaved soooo badly they were threatened with deportation without getting their Christingles) it was back home to have tea and get them into bed at a vaguely reasonable hour. It was only once they were in bed, it suddenly dawned on me that I had sandwiches to make in the morning and precious little to put in them. Luckily, we had one loaf of bread left, so even if they had bread and butter sandwiches, at least it was something. However, they normally get some fruit, yoghurts and pork pie. And I had nothing at all left. They were going to be ravenous. For a moment I contemplated throwing myself on the mercy of the schools and pretending that I had forgotten all their lunches, but then Spouse came up with a good wheeze. Now that the sweets were eaten, I could chop up the oranges for them. I then discovered I had a big bag of raisins ready for Christmas pudding making, and Spouse found four dairylea cheeses hiding at the back of the fridge. So at least the children wouldn't go hungry.
... but in the event of a nuclear holocaust, we probably would be...
The plasterers were due to arrive at 7.45 which I'm sure you'll agree is an ungodly hour even for parents of four (seeing as we have now educated our offspring to go downstairs and make themselves breakfast we do occasionally get a bit of extra shuteye at the weekend). So Spouse dutifully got up at 7.30 to let them in. But whereas pyromaniac builder mate (who has built so much of our house and garden he takes a proprietorial interest in things) pitched up to make sure the plasterers knew what they were doing, plasterers came there none.
So I trotted off to do the ballet run with all the sprogs in tow (older two moaning wildly as they got to miss Dick and Dom in Da Bungalow - the one result of me having to take them out) while Spouse and PBM made their third cup of tea and waited...
...and waited...
and waited...
While no 3 was in her lesson Spouse rang up to say that the plasterers had done a no show, so he agreed to come and meet me . This created a conflict of emotions. While I was mightily pissed off with the plasterers, I was also damned glad to have an extra pair of hands to help separate my warring offspring (ten minutes in the Fame School is usually enough to send them demented).
As I had thought I was out for the duration with the children, I had promised them a visit to Father Christmas in our local Lifestyle Centre (no I don't know what that is either, but it comprises a library, a gym, a doctor's surgery and a cafe, with shops underneath and flats above). Santa duly visited, it was a quick trip to Macs for a nutritional lunch (which was just as well as we had no food to speak of at home) before taking no 2 to her gym class and no 1 to her jazz dance class.
Spouse took the little ones home and I managed to get in a bit of Christmas shopping. Although we are now in December Christmas hasn't quite penetrated my radar yet, and I realise that it should, it really should as the kids have a WHOLE WEEK off before Christmas, so shopping opportunities are going to be severely limited from now on...
Then it was back home and out again to no 4's Christmas Fair. Part of me fights with the idea of spending any money at her school as it is a private one and her nursery fees cost me a fortune. But on the other hand, it was quite nice to go along to one of these things not being involved at all, other then to part with some money. The children managed to liberate the contents of my purse within minutes as they all wanted to buy tat for each other for Christmas. And this being a private school , the quality of tat was rather more pricey then I'm used to from the fair at their school... I did manage to get some half price cakes though, which was handy as the cupboard being bare meant I had nothing for pudding. It was a scrabble to find something for tea, but Spouse managed to knock up ham sandwiches and some rather limp looking cucumber.
By this time it was too late to get to Sainsbury's so I was on the verge of suggesting we got a takeaway, when we had a phone call from our best friends, they were at a loose end, could they come over? Since said best friends have recently come back from Spain after an absence of three years, so we are still pretty excited about seeing them, so of course we said yes. Come and eat, I said recklessly, before adding, sorry the place is a bit of a mess... (Needless to say my work of the previous weekend had been swiftly undone and the place was a pigsty once again). Deciding that tolerant and all as they are even they might balk at the chaos, we swiftly charged round getting the sprogs to put their tat away.
Then we had a moment when we considered what to eat. Spouse disappeared to the deep freeze and came back with some steaks and prawns. I rummaged about in the fridge and came up with four mushrooms, a pepper, some spinach and an onion. I knew we had rice, so we could just about manage a stirfry. It's what you call Make It Up As You Go Along Cooking. Luckily our friends didn't seem to mind (the bucketloads of red wine probably helped) and we stayed up way too late chewing the fat.
Net result was Sunday morning produced the hangover from hell. I had to get up and take no1 to a birthday party, which meant rising far too early in the pitiful state I was in. After managing to dig out enough toast to feed if not an army, at least all of our guests, they departed and I contemplated making lunch. With - er - what? We were far too exhausted to even contemplate supermarket shopping, so this time, I persuaded everyone to have soup and bread, which seemed to do the trick. But what to do for dinner? Normally we have a roast and Spouse, (whose German mother has left him with a paranoia about not having enough food in the house) usually stocks the freezer with dozens of the damned things, but inconveniently we seem to have eaten them all. I do manage to rustle up some lamb chops though. And we have a few carrots, plus some potatoes and frozen peas. That'll do.
Before feeding the mob though, we have to go to the Christingle service. Being (as Spouse prosaically puts it) a left footer, I hadn't come across this particular tradition in my childhood, but then Spouse who is a Proddy Dog, hasn't either. Anyway for the uninitiated, the service revolves around getting an orange, with four cocktail sticks in which sweets and raisins are placed. Needless to say it is rather a popular event in our house. Mercenary? My children? As far as I understand it, the orange represents the world, the sticks the four seasons, the sweets, the harvest and a red ribbon around it, Christ's blood. Oh and you also get a candle which is the light of Christ. Amazingly in these child-cosseted times we actually got to light the candles in church (albeit with stern warnings about safety and wild disclaimers everywhere).
Once the service was over (at which the offspring behaved soooo badly they were threatened with deportation without getting their Christingles) it was back home to have tea and get them into bed at a vaguely reasonable hour. It was only once they were in bed, it suddenly dawned on me that I had sandwiches to make in the morning and precious little to put in them. Luckily, we had one loaf of bread left, so even if they had bread and butter sandwiches, at least it was something. However, they normally get some fruit, yoghurts and pork pie. And I had nothing at all left. They were going to be ravenous. For a moment I contemplated throwing myself on the mercy of the schools and pretending that I had forgotten all their lunches, but then Spouse came up with a good wheeze. Now that the sweets were eaten, I could chop up the oranges for them. I then discovered I had a big bag of raisins ready for Christmas pudding making, and Spouse found four dairylea cheeses hiding at the back of the fridge. So at least the children wouldn't go hungry.
... but in the event of a nuclear holocaust, we probably would be...
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