I have five days to finish all Christmas related jobs! Over the weekend, I bought a tree and bought a lot of Christmas presents, I’m close to done with presents, so I’m sure it’ll be fine. I have today off, I was going to have a haircut but Jane’s husband has covid so we’re hopefully going to go after Christmas. I could have given the day back but instead decided that I would spend the day finishing presents, tidying the house and catching up on housework (I don’t know why the bathroom has to be cleaned before Christmas but there you have it!). The idea is that with most of my people at work now on holiday, I’ll be able to crack on with some things I’ve been meaning to finish and then I can break up for Christmas on Friday and not think about work until the New Year! We’ll see how that goes.
Booster
Last week was pretty low key. I had my booster on Tuesday and my body decided to have a lovely flu like reaction, I basically had two and a half days of feeling rubbish. I was at home anyway so I mostly worked and slept. We had a virtual Christmas party on Friday afternoon. I often get credit for these things but actually the person doing the quiz and his team are the heroes, for something over screens, it was fun.
Mostly, like everyone else in the country (and beyond) I’m wondering if and/or when I’m going to get covid and hoping to God it’s not before Christmas, I will absolutely cope if I had to be home by myself for Christmas, but I want to be with my family. The nephews are 12 and 6, my mother is 73, there is absolutely a time when I’m not going to spend Christmas with other people but while I can and the boys can communicate in full sentences (and it’s touch and go with the eldest!) I would like to enjoy that!
when you get focus completely wrong
Have a good week and fingers crossed that you all get to have the Christmas you want…
Why America Can’t Test Like Europe. Here’s the thing, the only time I find the NHS rigid and invasive is when the Tories are trying to privatise it and sell my data. I’m not saying that everything is perfect but come on…
This weekend, I went to Sarah and Justin’s for a visit, I was loved by Fred and made stuff with Sarah’s grandson.
Fred
There was also some Christmas tree decoration going on.
It was lovely.
I am glad to be at home though, I like being home.
This week, is WFH and Christmas prep. Last week, I booked my booster for Tuesday, so I will go and do that. But mostly, I need to write Christmas cards and buy and make Christmas presents.
It’s been a week! I’m not back in the office now until whenever the Govt changes the advice to work from home if you can. Given the advice, our company has decided that the responsible thing is no in person meetings, so the Christmas party next week is off.
The worst thing is that this all feels like a reaction/distraction from No. 10 party scandal. They fucked around and were found out, I’m not sure that it’ll make much difference but when Ant and Dec start having a go about it things are bad
I’m not sure what I find worse, that they did it or that they weren’t clever enough to ensure there was no evidence, there was a tape of them talking about it after it had happened. If you are going to lie and cheat at least be good at lying and cheating, did Johnson’s education include any Machiavelli because if it did, no learning happened.
Why adoption isn’t a replacement for abortion rights. I’ve had an abortion, but there is absolutely no way I could have given a child that I literally grew in my womb up once it was here. That’s not to say I don’t have huge admiration for women who do that, that I don’t have sympathy for women who are unable to look after their children and have the choice taken away from them or that I think that adoptive parents aren’t ‘real’ parents. I’m saying that would not have been a choice for me. Abortion is just one choice someone who is pregnant can make, I don’t believe in taking any of their choices away.
Why we’re so obsessed with nuns. I feel that this should be retitled ‘Why non-Catholics are so obsessed with nuns’. If you’re a certain age and acquainted with Catholic Church or school, you’re not obsessed with them, you know them. In fact spotting plain clothes nuns in a skill, I still have!
I start this week, pretty bleeding tired. Last week I had my flu shot and spent the week feeling that I was coming down with a cold, basically, snotty with sinus pain and generally seedy. I got over it with echinacea and elderberry syrup and well timed use of cold drugs.
Which was just as well because this weekend was non stop. I met Ma for a birthday breakfast on Saturday.
I feel that her birthday card was accurate…
Constant supervision
After breakfast, gifts and a bit of shopping where I prevented her from buying a megaphone for either of the nephews, I went home to prepare for the onslaught of family lunch the next day. So by Saturday night the house was the kind of tidy that only visitors ever see!
On Sunday, I got up at 7am to start food prep. Everyone arrived at 10:30 ish to have coffee and cinnamon rolls. Dinner started with garlic bread (because if I don’t make it, the eldest nephew looks sad!), then a roast beef dinner and plum cake for pudding. Roast dinners are great but a complete pain if you only have one oven, six people to feed, no dishwasher and a tiny sink! I spent a lot of time washing up and cleaning up but it was a really lovely day.
One nephew on the phone, one in his den
This week, I’m going away at the weekend, so I’m cramming a lot of work, home and Christmas things into the week, there are only two weekends until Christmas and as usual I don’t feel at all ready and unlike last year, I don’t think Christmas will be cancelled at the last minute.
I have a list and I’ll just have to work through it, I’m pretty sure that everyone has those lists at the moment!
Last Sunday was the first Sunday of Advent. Lots of people have put their trees up already, my quick straw poll of the office says that most of them are going up next weekend, people should do what makes them happy, if you want a Christmas tree now, put it up.
I will wait until Christmas Eve, because I don’t want to miss the anticipation of Advent. This year, I have my usual paper calendar and candle, a beauty advent calendar and Ma and I are sharing a wine advent calendar. We are in Advent now so listen to Christmas music, I’ve been doing this for a couple of years after reading about someone else who did. It’s fantastic, on Monday morning, I came into work listening to Bob Dylan singing ‘Must Be Santa’ – it’s impossible to be gloomy when that’s playing but it’s also really apt as we’re in Chanukah, and I’m waiting for Neil Diamond singing The Chanukah Song to make the week complete.
There are loads of things to do in December that aren’t a tree but are about Christmas and feeling Christmassy. The 6 December is St Nicholas’ day, which basically involves being nice and giving away sweets (or leaving them in people’s shoes!), I won’t be punching heretics, which is the other thing, he’s known for, but he is my name saint so it makes sense. There also Christingle, which is definitely a Protestant thing, Luther and or the Moravian churches invented a Christkindl, meaning “Little Christ Child” festival which celebrates Christ as the Light of the World, it doesn’t seem to have a specific date, and can happen sometime between Advent and Epiphany, in the UK it was used to fundraise for the Children’s Society (the more you know!) , in which an orange stands in for the world, a candle for Christ’s Light, red ribbon for His blood, and finally sweets and dried fruit to represent the fruits of the earth and the seasons. When we did it we used cloves, which made it into a pomander. Which is probably good for an afternoon with a glass of wine activity. I will also need to find some time for Christmas baking, which I’ve just about got planned.
Activities and Advent calendars aside, I do want to spend some of the next three and a half weeks, waiting. It’s the thing, I find most spiritually useful in Advent and not because I need to learn to be patient (yes I absolutely do!). Waiting and patience rewarded is baked into Advent. Not just because we get the child in the manger, but in the story of Elizabeth and her desperate waiting for a child which she does finally get but not quite in the way she expected.
It’s a common failure of Christianity, that story about waiting and about getting what we desire. The concept that we are rewarded by God for faithfulness. We get muddled, thinking that if we asked God for what we want, and if we’re patient and good, it’ll happen. That if we’re not, it’s because we didn’t ask properly, or wait long enough or behaved well enough. We ask for a lot, for a home, security, money or at least not having to worry about it, a partner, children, freedom from sickness or pain. If enough of those things happen, we think it’s because we deserve them, we’ve been rewarded.
A friend of mine calls it ‘Harry Potter Jesus’, but the truth is that what God wants for us doesn’t always mesh with what we want for ourselves, sometimes God’s answer is no.
It’s hard to reconcile the idea of a God that wants good things for us, with that hard no. The disconnect is painful, we’re supposed to believe that God loves us and we should be grateful for what we do have and everyone else seems to have the desire of their heart and you don’t and it’s hard and it’s sometimes lonely but it’s God’s plan for you. Why can’t you get want you want, why doesn’t God love you enough. It really sucks, ask me how I know.
Which is why I love the wait in Advent. At the end of Advent, I know what I’m getting, there will be a child, who will grow up to be a man, who understands all about that no. He understands how difficult it is to reconcile God’s Love with not having the things we want, when He said He loved us. He also shows me that real faith isn’t about reward but service.
So I wait, and there will be lights and presents and joy and work and service. And someone who has run that race and can show me how.
Last week wasn’t an epic week, I had Monday off and worked from home on Tuesday and had a migraine on Wednesday. It’s dark and I’m off my game, the migraines have been better but sometimes they just strike from nowhere especially when I’m not as clued in for signs, I was away with the fairies on Tuesday, which was obviously a migraine warning. I rallied on Thursday and Friday, and then in the middle of Friday Night had a nose bleed, quite a bad nosebleed.
The middle of the night is the worse time to have something like this happen, especially when you live on your own and have white bedding. At 3am in the morning it felt like a veritable tsunami of blood and I was by myself and it took longer than 30 minutes to stop. It wasn’t the most fun I’ve ever had but it wasn’t actually that bad (I’m blaming all the swabs I’m having to stick up my nose on a regular basis at the moment!), it did necessitate having to change the bed in the morning but worse things can happen.
On Saturday, it felt like winter finally decided to show up and show us it wasn’t mucking around. Ma came over, we sorted seeds and worked out what we needed to buy for next season and then trolled around to the plot to collect some produce and went to Sainsburys to buy fizz for Christmas (we are consistent).
Yesterday, I eventually got up and did some housework and some planning for this week and dropped off a blueberry bush (well at the minute it’s a blueberry stick) to a small friend.
It’s November so of course this cherry tree would be in blossom…
This week is all about work and prep for the event of December, not not Christmas, but my mum’s birthday! The plan is family lunch at mine so that will be fun (and chaos, with the littlest nephew involved!). In between, I want to get a start on things like cheese stars and mince pies and maybe even writing Christmas cards because it is Advent already….
At work we are motoring towards the end of the year, we have about three weeks before everyone starts going on holiday, so it’s busy and that’s mostly what I’m doing this week, being busy at work!
First Sunday of Advent. If I get excited about singing ‘O Come, O Come Emmanuel’, my mum who grew up in the Salvation Army and is therefore pretty much a Methodist, is excited by Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending. It’s Charles Wesley (naturally!) and therefore forms the background of music I hear a lot in December.
So the thing I couldn’t talk about last week was that I spent the weekend looking after Mike and Christelle’s dogs, while Mike whisked Christelle off to France to see her family for the first time in two years!
It was an early birthday present for Christelle, and a very instructional weekend for me! So this is what three days with Gabbie and Baylen (the dogs taught me) I love dogs but I’m never going to own one. I don’t enjoy having something that dependent on me and I’m still allergic to them. Not massively but enough that by Saturday night I was coughing enough that I was considering a COVID test and I had itchy eyes and nose.
So that was a lesson learned. Also Baylen had an upset stomach on Friday night and Gabbie was so disgruntled on Saturday, she left a ‘present’ outside my bedroom! I haven’t cleaned that much poo up since the littlest nephew was in nappies!
Speaking of nephews today the eldest one turns 12. I feel old! He sent me a text to thank me for his birthday present, it feels like a long time ago when he first joined the family!
12 years ago
My plans for this week are work, home and start to think about Ma’s birthday and Christmas. It feels like a long time away but Ma’s birthday is the start of December and is actually only 12 days away. That’s the first weekend of December, I’m away the weekend after that and then there’s one weekend and it’s Christmas! I’m not even close to ready!
