Christmas is bullshit.

An alternative Christmas letter for 2021

This year has been hard.

Having a third (lovely) child, refereeing Gabe and Jess through brotherhood , grinding out another year of the pandemic, Erin’s mum’s breast cancer, my dad developing Parkinson’s disease and two sittings of my final intensive care exam and working in an over capacity ICU full time.

We are both a bit smashed.

Erin has made the decision to leave a dangerously short staffed NHS maternity service behind for a less abusive relationship with research nursing and I’ve gone part time at work for the remainder of my training (hopefully will be finished November/December 2022).

Having kids at 6, 3 and 1 humming along in the background has been both a delight and like being dragged from one’s grave between 3 and 6 times a night. Major thanks to ‘Rob Beckett and Josh Widdicombe’s Parenting Hell’ podcast for reminding me and all parents that this mad journey is being replicated all over the globe and its ok to feel like you’ve been run over here and there.

And here we are just 4 days from Christmas, and I’m doing the laundry and tidying the kitchen before doing some pilates to try to get my back to stop being a mess and I’m struck by how much there is to do just to have ticked off the day’s vaguely necessaries. Its a magical time of year and I should be smelling oranges, lighting candles and hearing the faint jingle of a well dressed natural norwegian spruce as I gleefully wrap presents. And there it is, suddenly my tiny slightly overwhelmed mind gets another punch from the latest should.

This evening I had a beautiful, tender cuddle on the sofa with my two eldest boys as Erin settled Remy for the night. We laughed as we went through some old photos and videos of the boys as babies of Remy’s age. And then it hit me, “this isn’t christmassy enough!”, this is just a thing I could do on any other night of the year! Where’s the music, where are the cloves, where is the constant anticipation and chatter about Santa’s arrival?

Well turns out Christmas is bullshit. Another reason to feel pressure. Another reason to feel that what you are and what you’ve done isn’t enough. There aren’t enough sparkles, there isn’t enough magic, there isn’t enough tinsel.

And do you know what? You are enough. And I am enough. And we always will be. So you can stick your elf on the shelf where the sun don’t shine and just…… be….. this Christmas. Because I loved everything about you before you booked to go ice skating and I’ll still love you when your Christmas decorations are underwhelming again next year.

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