Two weeks from Boxing Day!!

This is the 10^th year running that I’ve posted 200+ blogs in the year.

Philippa has decided this weekend is ‘Wrapping Time’. For some reason (I suspect she bought into the media/facebook hype about everything selling out) she got all our pressie shopping done by Dec 7^th, so now it just needs wrapping and labelling and we’re done for another year! She even sorted things out for MY side of the family. Admittedly, there’s only a couple of them, but it saved me a job I suppose. My suggestion was that we forego buying each other stuff and just spent all the money on food instead, but no-one else agreed. So now we have a house full of shite that we somehow have to deliver to different houses when we’re not supposed to visit anybody.  Hmmm…

Our ‘Christmas bubble’ has been complicated to sort out. Last year, you may remember, we absconded to a lovely little farmhouse with my sisters, and had booked to do the same this year. But 2020 circumstances being what they have been, we had a conflab back before Lockdown 2 and all decided it might be best to cancel. The people running the accommodation basically had the same thoughts as us, and would rather not have groups of people from different locations congregating in their cottages this December, so they welcomed the cancellation and offered to let us re-book for some time in 2021.
Sophie will now be working, and Hannah is with Nathan’s churchy people, so I won’t spend time with them until my birthday. Philippa’s folks aren’t always the most flexible of people, so there’s been some in-family negotiations that I’ve kept myself away from, for the sake of my own sanity.
Ted and Beryl have been having breakdowns about which of their children to have round, but I think it’s all been sorted now. I did feel for Beryl, bless her. Her family are so important to her and not being able to see them constantly this year has been horrible for her. The idea of their usual huge Christmas gathering kept her going for a while, and when it was limited to three households it really upset her. She’s already planning a gargantuan ‘post-vaccine’ party for when we’re all allowed out again.
Ted, in his usual sanguine manner, has been ‘hoping Covid would claim me so I don’t have to wear a paper hat’. He’s so humbuggy in the build-up to Christmas, but I know he loves it just as much as she does.

RC 12-12-20