In search of the elusive Christmas spirit

We’re going to have a great Christmas this year, oh yes we bloody well are! I’m determined, I’m adamant. No excuses, Christmas will run smoothly, it will be magical, it will be the fairy tale, we will all laugh and wipe away tears of joy from our eyes, it will be special.

The pressure to have a perfect Christmas is spoiling Christmas. I’m very good at doing this; I think of something lovely to do then work so hard at making it perfect I end up stressed out, exhausted and don’t really enjoy it at all. I’m daft like that. And I’m at it again this Christmas, I’ve dragged my family to every Christmas market and event I can find, desperate to soak in the Christmas spirit and make it wonderful and magical for us all. There has been the Winter Fayre at the City Farm, complete with carol singers and Morris Dancers and not forgetting the animals (Taters will love that!). It sounded lovely, perfect to get us in the mood. We trudged there through torrential rain with me stubbornly refusing to turn back because it might stop soon and I’d been looking forward to it so we were going! Taters didn’t see very much of the farm from behind his rain cover and many of the stalls hadn’t turned up (due to aforementioned torrential rain)

everybody in! it's spitting!

But we saw a few animals and it stopped raining long enough for Taters to watch a piglet having a poo, though the bigger pigs terrified him and ultimately he was really rather bored stuck in his pushchair the whole time.

A piglet having a poo!

Then there was the Victorian Market. We didn’t go last year when Taters was 10 weeks old, it was cancelled due to snow. I’d been so looking forward to it too, it was to be our first family trip out after the cesarean, he was going in the sling, it was going to be lovely.

Yes I’d envisioned the whole thing and it was magical, ahh! Then it got cancelled.

So we were going this year no matter what…

Bloody hell it was freezing.

And raining.

So Taters didn’t see much from behind his rain cover and when he was allowed out of the pushchair inside the big hall, it was so packed it was utter mayhem. The result was poor Tater’s throwing a premature “terrible-twos” style tantrum because I wouldn’t let him meander around aimlessly in circles and yank Christmas decorations off the stalls. I had to send him home with Grandma and Daddy in the end and then spent an hour or so Christmas shopping with my brother and his family. Yes, wonderful family trip out that was! I have a vague recollection of my wonderfully patient and understanding husband trying to warn me it might be a bit much for Taters… but I might have possible tuned him out or muttered something about him being a killjoy…

Fast forward a week or so and we’re at the Botanical Gardens Magical Christmas Light Show; there’s a miniature stream train, Santa’s grotto, a light show…. How could I possibly fail to feel the stirrings of Christmas spirit here? At last, it will officially feel like Christmas… As we drive past the enormous stationary queue wonderfully patient and understanding husband suggests we might want to rethink this one… (killjoy)… But I remember there is another entrance, huzzah! The queue is minuscule here and moving. I will not be defeated!

It’s drizzling a little, we contemplate bringing out the rain cover for the pushchair, but it slows to a stop… Woo-hoo!

And the Botanical Gardens Magical Christmas Light Show? Well it was alright, kind of nice, not really worth £6 but nice. Overcrowded, yes. Worth dragging out Taters, his daddy and grandma after dark on a drizzly, windy evening? The jury’s out on that one. I felt little flickers of Christmas spirit here and there like the candles dotted around amongst the trees, but it was so packed we were pushed along on a tidal wave of people – there was no time to savour the moment or let in the magic, or even just enjoy the colourfully lit trees and Christmas music. It was just nice.

I’m annoyed. I’ve never really liked Christmas but now I have a child I really want to love it. I want to make it wonderful for him. Last year I was ill and it didn’t live up to the image of how “our first Christmas” together should be. I feel like I let Taters down because of that, hence my manic overdrive this year. I need to get a grip. I know I’m just trying way too hard and I need to calm down. I so want to build magical memories and enjoy this special time as much as possible, these are the golden years are they not? Why do I feel so flat?

Anyway the tree is up now, the presents are mostly bought. It’s still only mid December so it’s not too late. I will try to stop dragging my family around in the wind and rain to any event labelled up with the Christmas tag and listen to wonderfully patient and understanding husband… I drive myself mad sometimes.

My big headed baby

I was laughed out of the doctor’s surgery this morning and I couldn’t be happier about it. We’d been sent by the health visitor because little Tater’s head circumference is off the charts, it was when she first measured it 5 months ago, 3 months ago it remained static and she was pleased with that, but on this occasion it had grown another 1.5cm. She wasn’t happy about that and instructed us to take him to the GP. Personally I would have been more concerned if it hadn’t grown at all in five months, but what do I know about these things? And so off to the doctors we dutifully trotted… and he looked at us gone out! His diagnosis? Tater’s has a big head, he’s a big lad (99.6th percentile for weight and 98th for height), Daddy has a big head too (it’s practically impossible to get a hat that fits him), it’s just the way he is. Tater’s head isn’t growing any faster than the rest of him, he’s walking, babbling and doing everything else a child of his age should do – there’s nothing wrong with him. He seemed somewhat exasperated that the health visitor had made such a fuss over a perfectly healthy, normal child.

That said, I’m not really angry at the health visitor, after all they’re just looking out for my son and I want them to be vigilant. I guess this one is another procedure they have to follow, they do so love their charts and he didn’t fit the norm so it worried them. Fair enough, I’d surely be thanking them if something had been wrong and they’d discovered it. But there does seem to exist a certain antagonism between doctors and midwives/health visitors – which really wasn’t at all helpful back in the early days when you tend to prefer your “godlike experts” to be on the same page.

It did make me realise one thing though, if I am ever blessed with a second child I don’t think I should pin my hopes on getting my dream “totally natural, no painkillers, hypno-birthing in a yurt by candlelight” birth this time round either. Number one = big baby with even bigger head. Number two = let’s face it, probably another c-section, might as well come to terms with that now.

Anyway, free of this hanging over us I’m now on a bit of a high. It’s the second piece of good news this week after finding out our boiler was leaking carbon monoxide on Monday – yes I class that as good news, we found out about it before it could do any harm, that’s extremely fortunate. I also got to go out to a gig last night, and I didn’t have to come home earlier because Tater’s had rumbled that I wasn’t in the house and gone mental. Marvellous! I feel like a more rounded individual this morning.

Right, back to dashing around the shops and fighting off the hoards to buy gifts; endless, tedious wrapping and feeling bloated from too many sweets… tis the season to be harassed, stressed and obsessed that everyone else is having a more magical time than you… tra-la-la-la-laa-la-la-la-laah...