Firstly I must apologise for my extreme lack of
blogging this year. There are a number of reasons for this: I have discovered
twitter, I am doing a degree, and I no longer have the internet at home. That
and I may have just run out of interesting things to say. Anyway, I doubt any
of you are that bothered, so I’ll finish the excuses there.
So it’s the first of December, and every where
children and young people are scoffing their way through the first day (plus a
few!) of their advent calendars, while parents come to a shock reality that
it’s only 24 days till ‘C-Day’. I remember when I was younger my Mum used to
make our advent calendars in little cotton bags – and each year we were given a
different coloured used to tie the bags. The bags would hang randomly around
the dado rail in the hall-way and each day we would have to search for the right
number, and then perform some kind of balancing circus trick in order to
retrieve them. We would all get something different, but Mum would always
ensure that everyone got the same amount of stuff over the 24 days. It probably
took lot s of organising: Thanks Mum. J
Nowadays I don’t have an advent calendar. In
fact most years the 1st December comes and goes and it’s only when
it hits around the 18th December that I realise that Christmas is
just around the corner. Cottrell says there are 4 stages of Christmas:
1. You believe in Father Christmas.
2. You don’t believe in Father Christmas.
3. You are Father Christmas.
4. You look like Father Christmas. (I guess this only applies to men….)
I guess I have been at stage 2 for at least 14
years, and will probably continue to be so for a while yet. This year, I am
looking forward to Christmas, or at least Christmas being over with. This year
has been a long one for many reasons, and I’m ready for it to be over now. 2011
was supposed to be so full of hope. It was supposed to be full of
opportunities. It was supposed to be the year when everything started to fall
into place. I’m not sure if I’m giving up too early but I don’t think it
delivered. Maybe I just expected too much too soon.
Anyway, DNCIC gives a few recommendations every
day of things to help you to stop, calm down and remember the ‘reason for the
season.’ (I’ll list them at the end of every blog.) Anyway, TODAY:
· Write
a Christmas wish list – not things you want to consume or purchase, but things
to believe in, things to hope for.
· Prune
your Christmas card list.
· At
least make sure it is Charity cards you buy.
· Don’t
write: ‘Must see you this year’ on your cards unless you actually mean it. And
if you don’t mean it, why are you sending this card at all?
· Help
save the planet and send an email-card, and then a note about which charity the
money saved has been sent to.
· And
with all the time you’ve saved, put your feet up for an hour!
“Why is
Christmas like a day at the office? You do all the work and the fat guy in the
suit gets all the credit.” Ogden
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