I thought I was good at Christmas

I struggle to believe that Santa makes a list but only checks it twice. It’s 5am and I’m lying in bed running lists in my head, again.

This is how I spend every morning at the moment in this wild run up to Christmas.

Today was almost a lie-in, because the busyness elf sometimes comes a knocking at 3am, and we make mental lists which I later add to the to-do list on my phone.

I then cross-reference this with the lists on my computer: the gift list, the Christmas dinner list, the cards list, the grocery list; and also check off the lists concerning the comfort of the lovely friends who are staying, and those still to arrive, with all the attendant cooking and laundry and splendid, ruinous late-night socialising – plus my college project is due, and there are the work-related things I must finish.

I don’t know how people with proper jobs do it. I always imagined myself to be quite good at the festive season, but this year I think my head’s going to implode. Maybe it’s like childbirth, the elf within whispers; maybe the outcome diminishes the memory of the pain … oh, and don’t forget about (any number of things).

So I’m trying to find a way to cope, or at least to power through without having a breakdown. I suspect many people are.

The problem may be that Christmas is my favourite thing, and I pride myself on being good at it. Maybe I’m not though. Maybe I’m just a master of making it pretty and fragrant in the eyes of other people, while I’m like a duck, trying to stay calm on the surface but paddling away frantically below the water. Now it feels like I’m sinking. So the elf and I, we’ve made a plan: we’re going to make two new lists.

One list will be things that are essential to making celebrations acceptable, like ordering a turkey, buying crackers and not forgetting that a family birthday happens four days before Christmas. Then there’s the other list, and this one is going to be my life saver.

It’s the “Would Be Nice” list of non-essentials that have somehow become essential in my head: a homemade Christmas cake, lights in the garden and writing personal notes in all my cards. Then I’ll burn it. That’s the plan anyway. I’ve put it on my to-do list.

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