A change is as good as a rest – especially at Christmas

Christmas morning 2014

There’s a lot to be said for traditions that pass down through generations and Christmas traditions mean something to each of us. As a family we’ve always had a pretty straightforward December 25th that followed a very similar, lovely patten. Wake up, open the sacks that Santa has left (we were never a stocking family), wolf down a handful of chocolate money followed by a bacon bap, hair wash, posh togs, turkey in, out to family friends for a festive tipple then back home, into our ‘slobs’ for an afternoon of feasting.

Last Christmas was the first without Mothership and whilst we were all properly dreading it (the first of anything, no matter how significant or otherwise, always hurts most), it turned out rather splendidly. But this was all far more luck than judgement.

It was about September, after our summer family holiday, that I started thinking about Christmas and my next allocation of annual leave. How would it pan out this year? Would the beautiful fluke of a Christmas free of too much heart ache kindly repeat itself? It felt like too much to leave to chance.