Holy shit... It's Christmas Month!

It's weird how this has crept up on me - Mathew has been energetically attacking his advent calendar every morning, we've started playing Christmas tunes in the office, I've been supervising the tree decorating in each of our function rooms on each of our sites - and yet still I only just seem to have registered that it's December!
It shouldn't be a shock to me - it's certainly been cold enough to give me a hint. Minus 2 on Saturday in our garden!
I'm not going to fall into my old trap of moaning about the weather, so I shall accentuate the positives and say that Suffolk looked very, very pretty under a sharp frost, and that it is much easier to talk to your eldest child about Father Christmas when it feels likely that there might be snow on the way soon.

I've been trying to remember what it was like this time last year. I seem to recall that we were all struggling to get into 'the Christmas spirit' even when it was only three weeks away (like it is today!). Little Rian was so little that every second was about keeping him warm and happy and alive, and everything else became secondary. As any parent amongst you will know, the arrival of another young 'un is a major upheaval, even when you're already used to it from previous experience. There seems to be a disproportionate growth in difficulty - adding one more human to the mix actually upsets the rhythm of your house by about 300%.
Also worth acknowledging, I suppose (although I don't like to relive it), that last year was the first Christmas in 3 that wasn't being dominated by Covid, so we were all still finding our feet and finding a way to reinstall our traditions and remind ourselves exactly how we used to celebrate. So maybe this is still an after-effect of all that pandemic malarkey. This time of year has always brought about feelings of togetherness, love and warmth, but in recent memory it's been about separation, fear and The Virus, so it'll take a while for us all to readjust and recover psychologically.
Or maybe I'm the only person feeling like this, and you're all bouncing around full of joy like energetic elves! And if that is true, I am happy for you.

RC 4-12-23