Broken Bones & Christmas Shopping
The internet shopping part of my Christmas is well underway, and I hope to have all gifts bought, delivered, and possibly wrapped by the end of November so I can enjoy all the twinkly nice bits that the festive season has to offer.
If you are now reaching for a bucket of dirty floor water to throw over my self-righteous, sanctimonious little head, in the words of The Spice Girls “Stop right there”!
This flurry of organisation is only happening because I’ve broken a bone in my foot, top section of my 5th Metatarsal to be exact, which means I’m grounded. However, with the initial pain now subsided, this catastrophe couldn’t have come at a better time for me to sort Christmas out. Despite having written a book on the subject ‘The Perfect Christmas’ and generally talking a good story when it comes to organization since divorce, (which by its nature changes many previously set in stone Christmas traditions), and the girls all being adults now, I’ve lately skidded to the 25th December by the seat of my pants! I can’t quite get my head around how I managed to find time to send out so many Christmas cards many of which said ‘We must meet up’ knowing it was never going to happen. The adage ‘Ask a busy person comes to mind’? But, Christmas’ change as our lives change and we should embrace this go with the flow and not think that unless we are living inside a John Lewis advert, we’ve totally blown it. What I do feel in the air for us this Christmas is a calmer, slightly more mindful, even grateful approach. For all the pandemic has taken, it has left us all with reminders of life’s fragility, how much of our curtailed Christmas last year we didn’t miss and with COP26 breathing down our necks it’s just not cool to be excessive which is something we tend to do when we’re buying our way out of disorganization strangely forgetting it’s just one day. The shops are only closed for that one day and if there’s an emergency, petrol stations (fingers crossed!) and corner shops are there to help.
So try pretending you left a shoe shop clutching ‘The Beautiful Shoes’, so consumed were you imagining the beautiful shoes on your dainty little feet you hailed a cab to transport them to their new home so they could nestle with other beautiful shoes. But then catastrophe, you slip off the pavement, the beautiful shoes go flying through the air knowing by the sight of the twisted foot below they are doomed to stay in their box for the next 6 weeks, but happy in the knowledge their new owner’s Christmas will be very organized!
Love,
Anthea X