A Post Christmas Conundrum

So Christmas, after all the build up, has come and gone. Presents have been opened and the mountain of recycling, from all the packaging and wrapping paper is clogging up wherever you leave your recycling.

Now Christmas is forgotten for another year (well, until September) and we look to the new year for new starts and new beginnings and it all starts again.

I am now grumpily looking at all the Christmas decorations and thinking, shit, it will take ages to take all this down. It will be all dusty and horrible and there will be sneezing, and I will marvel at how vast our living room is without all the crap that is associated with Christmas.

Now don't get me wrong, as I write this, I realise that I may be coming across a tad Grinchy. Which I am not. I love Christmas. The trouble is our decorations went up the first weekend of December (due to obligations we had on the other two weekends leading up to Christmas) so the decorations have been up for AGES.

I get all caught up in the excitement of it all, I watch certain films to get me in the mood (Love Actually and The Holidays), I build Lego Santa's and Christmas scenes, and they get 'distributed' at home and at work. My children, get caught up in my excitement - they write their letters to Santa and get their PNP message. They get a new Christmas tree decoration each year, or make something. They help me cook Christmassy fayre.

The point is, after all this, it can be a tiny little bit disappointing. I don't know what exactly I am expecting. A bit of real Christmas magic, a personal letter from Santa, a surprise stocking of my own. I have no idea, I get beautiful thoughtful gifts from my family and friends, I see the joy on my children's faces as they open their presents and their stockings, totally believing in all that is Christmas, and I marvel yearly that I manage to maintain this for them, surely that is the magic?

Is it just that I have finally grown up and see the commercialism and the ridiculous amount of money we spend? Beautifully wrapped presents, minutes later all that beautiful wrapping ripped, torn and thrown away.
Anyone who knows me, will know how sad it makes me a) to realise I am growing up, about anything! and b) to think anything beautiful is wasteful.

So a conundrum, maybe I am just on a post Christmas low, or am I growing up. Either way I have only two words.

Bah humbug!

Colds, Coughs, Snow, Nits and Christmas

I love Christmas.

Every year my husband has to stem my Christmas spirit to grotto our house and keep the decorations in moderation.

The lead up to this Christmas has not exactly been as smooth as I would like. There was the family weekend of snot in late November which was pretty disgusting. All the family full of an extremely snotty cold. Ugh.

Then the first spell of really frosty weather, we didn't have much snow, but boy it was cold. Everything looked beautiful though.

Sniffles continued into December but no one was properly sick. Then the dreaded nits came (I blame a soft play place we went to) We are still doing the repeat treatments. I haven't had them but I can't help but feel itchy...double ugh!

And now, just when we all really want to be festive and see friends and family, my eldest has a cold and chest infection that has properly floored her. I have never known her to stay in bed all day before this. I have had to cancel two visits already with people we really really wanted to see before Christmas. (There was a brief concern that it may be swine flu. Fortunately, after a visit to the doctor today we have found that it is not).

And now there is proper snow.

Still, the Christmas Lego collection is coming along nicely ...

And we are fortunate enough to have presents under our tree.

So with antibiotics and plenty of Christmas fayre, all will be well...and just in case I don't blog between now and Christmas, Merry Christmas everyone xxx