Christmas is Coming, The Goose is Getting Fat...

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??