😭A Christmas Disaster

Not all Christmases are created equal

Hello Restless Ones,

We’re on the countdown to Christmas, and that also means in our house it’s Birthday week. Storm is about to turn four. Whaaaat?!

Who doesn’t want to host a kids birthday party just before Christmas? I’m very excited. I get to make a cake (buttercream a go-go), and I also get to have my face painted by a very talented face painter, who I totally hired for the kids.

This week’s post is free to read in full because… (did I mention?) it’s freakin’ Christmas!

There won’t be a post next week… because I’m trying to have a week of ‘doing’ less, and I hope you are too? But if you want something to get stuck into, here’s the lovely live chat I had with Laura Fountain at Lazy Girl Running.

If you’re still scrabbling for gift ideas… Annual Restless Mumma gift subscriptions are discounted until Dec 25th here.

In the New Year… I’ll be coming at you with some weekly digital postcards from Cape Verde. We’re away for a month and I wanted to take you all with me, so in a change from the usual long form posts, I’ll be offering shorter notes and audios, along with some piccies.

To the post! It’s a tale I wrote after last Christmas went off-piste. I didn’t share it then, so here it is ahead of this year’s big day.

All that’s left to say is a heartfelt thank you for being here with me in this little corner of the inter web. You are the Jingle to my Bells. 💜

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

Anna xx

A Christmas Disaster

It’s lunchtime on Christmas Eve and we’re bombing it down the motorway in a fully loaded Ford Galaxy people carrier. I’m resting my head on a bag of presents, my feet are sitting on top of a bag of the twins’ clothes and there’s a formula-maker machine precariously perched behind my left shoulder. Something fills every nook and cranny of the car, and the back seat in the boot feels reassuringly womb-like.

With the help of three warm bottles of milk, we have somehow got all three kids to take a nap, and so all is quiet. All that is, except my head, which is banging.

I’ve been battling a nasty cough for two weeks, but yesterday, things tipped up a notch and I went down with the flu. After a night of fever and sweating, I assumed it was one of those 24 hour viruses, so we cracked on with the planned journey to my parents’ house in London for Christmas.

I hoped I could make a miraculous recovery en route, but that hasn’t happened. My temperature is still over 39C and I feel as rotten as the half-eaten satsuma I’ve just discovered in the boot of the car.

Now three years old, this is the first year that Storm actually gets the Christmas thing, and that’s been lovely. The twins are only 11 months old and so they don’t quite yet understand what’s happening but that’s okay because I LOVE Christmas enough for them too. I mean, REALLY love it.

Our decorations go up after Halloween (controversial), I start on the Baileys in November time, I’m all about brandy fruit-soaking and Christmas cake-making and I don’t waste a second turning the dial to Magic FM’s Xmas station.

That said, Storm’s heightened awareness of the festivities has come with a new, unexpected challenge. Having spent decades of life attempting to tell the truth, I must now weave a merry web of lies.

More than that, making it through the month of December-deception calls for a sharp mind and a quick-wit. Because every unexpected query has the potential to unravel the magic and mystique that is… Mr Claus.

So far we’ve tackled:

Q: ‘How does Santa get actually down the Chimney?’

A: ‘Santa’s tummy is so much like a bowl full of jelly that he can squeeze into tiny spaces. Like the octopus we once saw at the aquarium.’

Q: “Does Mrs Claus come to deliver presents too?’”

A: ‘Mrs Claus stays at home… (which feels un-feminist, so I add…) ‘She’s in charge of the logistics of Christmas Eve and making sure Santa knows when to be where. Mrs Claus calls and WhatsApp’s Santa. A Lot.’

Q: ‘Why does Rudolph eat carrots?’

A: ‘Because they can’t grow carrots at the North Pole, it’s too cold, so having a carrot from each house is a real treat for Rudolph. He looks forwards all year long to eating carrots on Christmas Eve.’

One afternoon, at a local playgroup after a Santa with an exceptionally shiny beard gave Storm and her fellow group-go-ers a present, I ask if she has any questions for me. She pauses before saying, nonchalantly.

‘Yeah mummy, I have one.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘Why does Santa even bother to come down here when it’s not Christmas yet?’

It’s said with much sass and there is a genuine look of confusion on her face. I think for a moment as I try to put myself in Santa’s shoes.

‘Well… Santa gets cabin fever in the North Pole. He doesn’t leave much, so he comes down here to stretch his legs and smell the fresh country air. And besides, he needs to test ride the sleigh and make sure it’s working for Christmas Eve.’

Merry STUFFmas?

With Storm now old enough to ask probing questions, she is also old enough to understand the giant dopamine hit that comes from opening a wrapped-up SHINY NEW THING on Christmas Day.

I still have a fever and am feeling like death-on-a-stick on Christmas morning, but watching her little face light up at a pile of presents by the tree is magical. Unfortunately, it’s not long before the whole present-opening ceremony stirs up a maelstrom of emotions.

It makes me happy to see Storm happy. But I can’t help but feel queasy about it all. Specifically, about all the stuff.

Does having too many presents mean she won’t be grateful for what she has when she grows up?

And how many is too many?

What values are we instilling here about material things?

Am I letting other family members go too wild with the gifts and not saying enough about putting a limit on the presents?

And so it goes on.

At that moment, I am trying to disentangle what this inner chatter really represents. What are irrational fears about the person she may or may not become (be gone those thoughts, away with thee), what are hang-ups and hangovers from my life experiences (I’ll take a closer look at those), and what is my moral compass trying to steer the ship (I like these thoughts — they can stay).

To appease my unease at the stuffness, Jamie and I have gone-low key on the pressies. Most of what we’ve bought the kids is second hand and the things I have bought new have been well thought through. Or so I tell myself….

Storm is in a playing-with-figures phase, so I’ve gone to great lengths to source her some female action figures — largely because when she’s playing anything that involves action, rescue or play fighting — the only figures she has are males. (This is also because she plays with a set of figures that Jamie had when he was a kid. Seriously. I’m talking He-Man and Thundercats. His mum kept them all. Wow.)

Having waded through the sea of female action figures for kids who all wear hot pants and have large boobs, I have found some from an online shop that are fully clothed. Imagine.

When the figures arrive, they’re smaller than I expected but they look cool, and they’re called things like: Fear, Persistence, Courage, Enthusiasm and Energy… Brilliant, I think. Well done me. Strong badass vibes for my little girl.

Storm opens them. She plays with the figures for approximately five minutes before leaving them scattered around the room in favour of eating a mince pie.

Sometime later that day, Persistence’s leg falls off, Courage ends up armpit deep in a bowl of Christmas pudding and Fear gets trampled on.

Hey ho. I tried.

Still feeling rough, and after a tactical nap at midday, I drag my weary, shivering body through Christmas lunch. Despite a full spread of food from Mum, the twins are being selective at this, their first Christmas dinner. Jupiter has decided she mainly wants to eat carrots (with a side of carrot) and Rocky has opted for roast potatoes — but will only eat them after he has plunged a finger into each one.

Both have steered clear of the sprouts.

It should all be wonderful and I’m trying to enjoy myself, but every minute feels like an hour and I am a shell of a woman. I can’t do what I really want to do, which is just crawl into bed and wake up tomorrow. Well, I could. Physically I could, but my mind won’t let me. It’s everyone else’s Christmas after all. They don’t want to extra gift of looking after my three kids.

At 2pm, I am lying on the cold hard kitchen floor with my head resting on a packet of nappies. With everyone else in the living room, I’m revelling in the peace and noting how the smooth grey floor tiles feel cold against my cheek.

Mum comes in and encourages me to take my temperature again. It’s now close to 40C and the coughing is painful.

At 3pm Dad takes me to the local NHS drop-in centre. I can’t even believe it’s open… on Christmas Day?! The Doctor is concerned I have a chest infection but says to leave things a few days and see how I go. They pack me off with a prescription for antibiotics, just in case.

That evening, close to bedtime, things have ramped up again at the house and the kids have gone loopy. They are out of their usual routine and all the excitement from the day has been… well, exciting. They don’t tell me this directly, of course. Especially the twins who can’t yet talk, but I see it in them.

They are out of whack.

I’m so tired by this point that I cannot even fathom standing upright for longer than a few minutes, but Santa Claus did not bring me a remote for Christmas, which pauses time while I have a rest. So I go through the routine of wriggling bottoms into nappies, wayward and resistant limbs into pyjamas and I set about wiping away the days grime and spatters of stuffing and gravy from their faces with a warm flannel, because I can’t be arsed to give them a bath.

By 5pm all three kids have decided that they want me to hold them / cuddle them / read them a book and no one else (none of the nine other adults in the vicinity will do). And so the shouting and calling for ‘Mumma!’ moves up a notch every ten minutes.

The more I try to pull away to get a breather, the more the kids claw for me.

At 5.45pm, things reach a crescendo.

Both twins are crying and Storm is running around the house, stamping her feet chanting ‘I. WANT. MUM-MY! Repeatedly. She’s had a tough year to navigate, what with not one but two new siblings and the change from a single child to now being one of three, understandably, it hasn’t come easy for her.

I know that even if I could juggle all three kids, no amount of holding them will stop the wails.

We just need to get to bedtime.

I go into the kitchen to make some bottles of milk. While waiting for the twins formula machine to do its thing, I move to get myself a glass of water, but I stop short of the tap. Instead, I lean over the sideboard and rest my head on my arms.

My dad walks in the room. I can hear him move towards me — the shuffle of his slippers across the floor. He puts his hand on my back.

‘It’s not easy, petal, I know.’ He says, which is unusual because it’s not normally my dad doing the comforting in our house. That’s Mum’s job. There’s something about my dad comforting me, which makes me feel like a little kid myself. And so I cry.

He gives me a hug and I cry a bit more.

Then I stand up, wipe away the tears and carry on making the bottles.

As it turns out, not all Christmases are created equal.

Some are picture perfect snowy postcards, cast in golden light, with chestnuts roasting on the open fire, smiling kids, beaming grandparents, laughter echoing through hallways, snuggly blankets and twinkling lights. And then some of them, despite our best efforts, go to shit.

So I would like to take a moment to raise a glass of Baileys (on ice, if you please) to all kinds of Christmases - the magical ones, the messy ones and the ones which feel like an SAS survival TV show.

And so if, this year, your Christmas Day goes off the rails, just take a deep breath and ask yourself — what would Persistence do?

P.S👇🏻❤️ Tapping the lil heart icon down there helps more people to see this post. It also fuels Santa’s sleigh and helps him fly on Christmas Eve. True story.