It’s just gone 8:30pm, and the children are already in bed. When they wake up tomorrow morning there will only be one more sleep until Christmas - and tomorrow will officially be the longest day of the year for them.
This evening we had dinner, and sat on the lounge floor together for the first time in ages and played Jenga. It was a reminder of how things should be - a reflection of the advertising images from the 1950s of the nuclear family.
Tomorrow will be a different thing entirely. I have all manner of things to buy with our eldest in tow. It transpired this evening that we have no chocolates or nibbles at all for Christmas - that’s just not allowed. I will be buying a regulation tin of Cadbury’s Roses, probably a tub of Quality Street, and whatever biscuit assortment I can get my hands on.
When I was young, memories of sweets at Christmas always take me to my grandparents, and old biscuit tins filled with home made jam tarts, or bizarre coconut fancies that I have never seen since - “snowballs”, and cheese footballs too.
Little do the girls know that following the various things I’ve done with Cadburys this year, they sent us a full size chocolate football. I have no idea what we’ll do with it (besides eat it of course).