My little man has just turned three and so this is the first Christmas where he understands that there is a special occasion on its way. He’s been busy at pre-school, reading about Father Christmas and reindeers and learning Christmas songs including Mariah Carey’s ‘All I want for Christmas,’ which I think is hilarious. I can just picture a group of three year olds pouting along to the song, Mariah style, singing, ‘All I want for Christmas, is yu-ooo.’ Bless them.
We’ve also been very busy getting bits and pieces together to make his snowman costume for the school concert, which is not so hilarious. Do I look like a parent with a sewing machine, endless art supplies and a cupboard full of spare buttons and wool? I wish I did, but I’m getting there slowly!
It’s also shaping up to be a lovely experience for me and my big man, as we get to enjoy Christmas again through our little man. We’ve been trying to pass off our cone-shaped wicker type lamp with fairy lights around it, as a modern version of a Christmas tree for years! But now finally we have a proper tree, with proper lights and decorations, too. We even got to decorate the said tree twice this year. Once with the little man, and the other when he’d gone to bed! Bless him, he’s only three and can’t be expected to follow rules of symmetry just yet! I’m surprised the tree never fell over, it was so one-sidedly bogged down with decorations.
This Christmas will also be an interesting one for us in the sense that we will be teaching our little one more of our favourite family motto ‘Less stuff, more experiences.’ We really want him to grow up with an idea that there is so much more value in shared experiences, from being together and doing fun and exciting things together, than there is in actual material possessions.
This year, as with the previous years (when he was too young to remember) he will only be getting one present from us, and that’s a little thirteen piece doctor’s medical kit! That is all he needs. In fact, he doesn’t need anything, because he has everything he needs, but of course Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a present to open, would it?
I’m hoping he will love it, as during his recent annual medical check up he became obsessed with all the doctor’s equipment. And so as a way to stop him from inserting felt tip pens in our ears for our all important ear checks, we thought we’d get him the real pretend thing!
We’ve also done some little bits of charitable things with him this year, like buy and donate a present to a child in a domestic abuse shelter and buy gifts for others from our local animal charity shop but they really are just little bits, which hopefully will go a long way.
I am looking forward to welcoming my mother in law, sister in law and her husband and children this Christmas and I say that with the biggest non-fake smile on my face. I love my in-laws and I consider myself so lucky that we all get on and have such a good laugh when we are together. I know that is not the case for everyone.
We will enjoy having our family here and love the time spent with them. We will enjoy going to Malaga City and seeing the lights, going to my father in law’s Christmas concert and eating and drinking ourselves into sleepy stupors by the wood fire. Because this, for us, is what Christmas is about; spending time with our loved ones.
I know at various times over the holidays, I will think about how lucky we are; how lucky we are with what we have and how lucky we are to have one another but I also know there will be times when I’ll think about those who are not so lucky and those whose luck has been snatched away from them, as can any of our luck be taken from us at any given moment.
I’ve never known it possible for a heart to be heavy and happy at the same time, but mine certainly is. How cannot it not be with all the tragedies that have happened this year and are still happening in the world around us. On Christmas day, just like any other day, I will hug and kiss my little boy hundreds and hundreds of hundred times, yet I will remember the mums whose children are no longer here with them to do the same. I will think of the families who imagined themselves being together over the Christmas period, who would have never have thought that one of them would now not be sharing these moments with them.
It is impossible to see and hear all that we see and hear around us without feeling like the world is getting crazier by the minute. Humanity seems to plummet to new depths, whilst people think up new ways to be more horrendous, more macabre and more evil to others.
Yet, there is hope though and there is good out there. It’s been lovely to read stories about charities asking people to donate rucksacks full of winter goodies for the homeless or the mum who took it upon herself to leave bags of shopping and presents on peoples’ door steps. To the people who have opened their homes and their purses, homes and hearts to the dispossesed and those in need. Stories like this make my heart so warm and remind us all that there are still good people out there, lots of them.
To the mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and friends who have lost loved ones or who have faced tragedies which make Christmas lose all sense of purpose, I hope that the new year that comes brings peace, joy, happiness and resolution to your hearts, minds and souls.
This Christmas, because I can, I will be loving my family even more than I do, telling them how much I love them and hugging them until they’re sick of it. And I will not take one minute of it for granted.
This people, is what is important in life, not just at Christmas.
Presence, not presents.
Happy Christmas to you all. Love, squeeze and be merry.
What are you up to this Christmas?
