Christmas time poverty and crime covid19 no fun time!

It seems only yesterday I went to the loft and got down the Christmas decorations, although now with a 2-day packing frenzy the ball balls tinsel (hate to say this) 4 trees! bunting sound activating Christmas toys and the fecking naughty Elf are packed away ready for next year. We are only just getting back to a new normal due to lockdown-1 and luckily live in an area where the virus was low risk, but all seemed too good to be true, yes Christmas is on Boris said, we want everyone to enjoy Christmas said Boris but the virus was growing although not around where we live so everyone was out shopping and enjoying a meal with a pint.

Christmas has seemed to come and go but it was good. The kids played well together and we celebrated in our bubble, we sang hymns together we watched films together we ate far too much drank far too much stayed up far too much together (not the kids) we had no meltdowns from the children? Every year like clockwork one of the kids will kick off be it Christmas Day or Eve or just some random day when we have visitors except not this year, this year was different it was now lockdown 2 and for all the hype from the government about keeping Christmas open they closed it.

We love entertaining and look forward to all our family and close friends visiting us over the Christmas period, for a couple of days we move the house around to accommodate our little groups so that we all can have fun enjoy the Christmas spirit catch up, and drink lots of wine!

clink here for Nerf Wars! Christmas family fun with a Nerf gun

Before our gallant leader Boris closed down Christmas we had planned for friends and family to visit, we had worked out our guests visiting dates, There sleeping arrangements ( we even offer our bedroom and sleep downstairs but that’s so the kids don’t disturb us in the morning) menus, and activities like which wonderful walks to do, all this sounds very organised but to be honest it easy as we all like food & treats, walking on the beach or our local area and board games, then the booze we love trying beers and wine so we bought half the food then ordered the wine and beer but then…

One day, one sodding day to see someone in your bubble, or family or whatever the rule was before the closed sign came on the Christmas door as I’ve forgotten and can’t be assed to look back at the rules, so we were left with a load for food which is not a problem in our house with 3 boys and a hungry girl and a tonne of beer and wine (I wish I had taken a picture of our recycling as for 2 weeks it did not get collected and we needed 3 extra bags just for the cardboard but the glass was shocking) no visitors just us what were we going to do?.

I have spoken to our close friends and family and to friends locally who all said the same thing, Christmas was different this year, Christmas did not have the same feel of the “bang & pow” of normal Christmases, the fun of celebrating the joy of giving & receiving gifts together, the fun of visiting school plays or Christmas fairs, the chase of shopping or the seeing of the Christmas lights, the going to church and drinking mulled wine and eating mince pies, and to us locals stupidity of running in the sea on Christmas day for a swim with 10,000 other mad hatters, instead a lot of zoom and Teams calls to catch up which is great but not the same although we did manage a wonderful New years eve on the laptop with the Besties and family, me running around the house with the laptop making sure all the kids had time with there uncles and aunts this after drinking many proseccos never good but we survived.

Christmas was different a nice different I did miss seeing everyone and only just managed a surprise visit to my parents (they live a distance away) who were self-isolating due to the current situation, but Christmas was nice.

We as a family watched many Christmas movies, played many board games together, went for walks together, played on the switch (Xmas present) and Xbox together, cooked together, watched T.V. cuddled up together, decorated the house together, pulled down the decorations together, sang carols together joined in our road’s Christmas celebrations and sang in our towns door stop carol service together, rang bells together and laughed a lot together.