Hey all and a very happy 0330 in the morning to you!
Last night I went to bed at 1920 because the pain in my side and back got so bad I couldn’t do anything else. I tossed and turned for hours and eventually fell asleep. Then ping! 0300 wide awake and realising that on only the 2nd of December I had already forgotten to fill the advent calendar. Cue getting up, fumbling around in the dark, filling the thing and then trying to get back into bed but actually falling over a pile of clean washing twice (I’m ill, there are lots of piles that are yet to be put away!)
Now I’m in bed, wide awake and my mind is working overdrive. You would of course think that this would be a huge thing, possibly the massive operation that is now only ten days away, the state of the world, the worry about all the people who don’t have somewhere to sleep in this cold but oh no, my current reason for insomnia is should we get a real Christmas tree this year or stick to the fake one? I am so mad with my mind right now!
A few years ago at Christmas time I recall being at work and having left Karl and the boys at home alone as it was a late shift. The boys were three and two I believe. Whilst at work I received a call from a flustered and panicked Karl telling me that the boys had knocked the Christmas tree over while trying to climb it. I wasn’t really sure how to take this information, you can imagine a whole host of questions such as, ‘why were you letting the boys climb the tree?’ ‘where were you while this was happening?’ and my very favourite ‘have you picked it back up?’
Karl asked me to come home but I couldn’t so had to give instructions over the phone while my colleagues laughed in the background. Karl and i still laugh about that incident now (well I laugh and he describes a near apocalyptic experience that I don’t know as I wasn’t there!) after that day we decided that we would stick with fake trees because they are more robust and if the children should decide to climb it they wouldn’t get stabbed by the needles and snap the branches off.
The boys are now five and six, could they be trusted with a real tree? I’m conscious that I’m probably trying to overcompensate. It’s not been a hoot having a poorly mummy of late and Christmas will be lovely but a time of recovery after my surgery so I want it to be the very best it can be. The smell of a real tree is one of the things I remember loving the most at Christmas when I was little too and they are old enough to appreciate that now. What do you all think?
I am also loving all the Elf on the Shelf pictures. I absolutely take my hat off to any parents who have given themselves this challenge this year. Me who has struggled with the commitment of an advent calendar you fill yourself applauds the parents who late at night are busy freezing the naughty elf in a block of ice or surrounding him with flour where he has been baking in the kitchen overnight. I imagine if I made such a commitment our elf would nightly be sat slumped next to a bottle of chocolate Baileys!
I have some lovely friends who are partaking in this lovely tradition this year and am very excited to see their pictures every day. I will marvel at their amazingness and hope that next year I have the energy and the ideas to make such a thing for my boys (did I mention my chocolate baileys idea?!)
I had a visit from one of my favourite people and her beautiful little girl today which made me smile, she did my washing up (bless you) we drank tea and chatted for about five hours. Her gorgeous daughter serenaded us a number of times with some lovely Christmas songs albeit with a croaky voice as they are implementing a new sleeping routine and she has bless her screamed herself hoarse. My particular favourite was the one about Christmas Puddings and ‘Steven Hot’ he sounds like a cool guy!
This reminded me of a conversation I had with Leo about the song ‘Away in a Manger’. Leo asked me what a manger was so we talked about it and I googled it (standard parenting tool) and showed him a picture. He then asked why was it away? I had no idea, other than it rhymes perfectly in the song and tried to provide a number of reasons in that ilk, I even tried the ‘ask your teacher’ cop out to which he replied, ‘but WHY don’t YOU know?!’ I didn’t say but immediately thought, because I am the mum who can’t manage elf on the shelf, can’t bake like all the other mums, spends 90% of her time currently in pyjamas, has a fixation on chocolate baileys which I’m not allowed to drink because of the tablets, forgets to fill the advent calendar and for three nights in a row forgot to collect letters left on the chimney place to Father Christmas because I kept falling asleep!
Anyway I will now stop boring you with my ramblings. You would have thought I might be sleepy by now but instead I’m thinking, what would Steven Hot look like?!
Night all xxx
tiredfromwhitstable 