Starting Christmas

I’ve started Christmas. At last. Due to the insistence of certain small people that it is actually going to occur in 24 days and several hours, I have been forced to start some sort of planning. It all began with the opening of the advent calendars. It was a kind of wake-up call. I know the next three weeks will rush past in a haze of Christmas plays, Christmas parties, Christmas carol concerts, general meetings of relatives, etc, and there will be no time at any point to do anything so I have ordered about 12 of the presents I have to order. All online. In fact, it took not too much time at all. I knew what the people liked, I had a list of ideas and the search function was superb. Plus, I have been writing an article on Christmas toys which gave me all sorts of good ideas for the children, who tend to suggest things they probably wouldn’t like for very long after they opened them.

For example, big girl daughter wants a chocolate coin maker. This is basically because of the chocolate coin. However, despite her great love of sweeties, she does not, much to her chocoholic grandmother’s despair, include chocolate in the category of sweeties and was very miffed when her ballet teacher gave everyone a couple of chocolate coins on Monday for the end of term ballet show. She immediately approached me asking if she could have "a real sweetie" from the corner shop. I said yes since that end of term show was pretty great [lots of barn-storming tapping four year olds in reindeer outfits, going the wrong way like dodgem cars] and we stopped at the chemists on the way. The chemist thinks I am very clever because I went to Cambridge. He does not know that was in an alternative life when I knew what hegemony meant. Now my mind is just a big vaccuum filled by the occasional Hannah Montana song. As he thinks I am clever, he also thinks my children are highly intelligent and he offered them a lollipop. It was sugar free. Big girl daughter knows her sweeties. She very politely declined, as did rebel daughter [the bonkers one was at a friend’s house] who doesn’t really like sweets. I think the chemist thought they were models of good eating. In fact, big girl daughter was holding out for the corner shop full sugar experience.

Anyway, I digress. I think I am going to find some other present for her as there is little point getting her something that makes things she doesn’t eat. She doesn’t really play with toys either. She plays with bonkers daughter who sails ships across the ocean and makes seesaws and guinea pig runs. In any case, I have not begun the main core family presents yet, but am feeling incredibly ahead of myself already. We have even put the Christmas tree up and bonkers and big girl daughter have wrapped up some of their books to put under it so it doesn’t look too bare. Roll on the next three weeks.