I Am Getting Ready For Christmas
It feels really strange this year. I always start the preparations for Christmas nice and early - I don't like a rush! and I enjoy all the wrapping-up of presents, and getting them ready for dispatch to far-flung places - as well as those lovely folks closer to home. When I'm writing the Christmas cards, and letters to go with them, it's a great time to think of everyone, and catch up on news - maybe not just with a letter or an e-mail, but with a phone call as well.
But it is different this year. With all the problems thrown up by the virus, and restrictions on travelling and visiting, I am sure some people may feel it will be perhaps better to leave all the festivities off the agenda. This is I can understand - but I take a somewhat different view.
Yes, it is more complicated, and because we can't see dear friends and loved ones, rather than our usual trips both here in England and in Europe to deliver our gifts personally, more parcels will have to be sent - which means being more organised, even earlier than usual!
Apart from being careful to follow the guidelines to protect ourselves and others from the virus, my main sense of sadness is that this is the first Christmas without Mum.
Because she died early in the year, on 23 March, since then we have had a lot of "firsts" without her. There was my birthday on 28 March; Easter, and Wendy's birthday in April, and other usual jollifications that have been noticeable by their absence - particularly Mum's birthday on 28 October. She would have been 101! and there was a strange void in not having to book Tea at the Ritz, and organise a wheelchair accessible taxi for us all on the day.
And now we are thinking about Christmas. This time last year, in spite of all her disabilities, Mum was so very helpful when I was wrapping up presents. We did everything together, and she was a dab hand at holding down the wrapping paper whilst I got stuck in with the Sellotape, to hold it all in place.
I am so glad we were able to do that as a team; it took us a long time, but what good times they were, working together! I've got so many happy memories.
