With a bit of time off before Christmas this year, I made myself a list of all the things I wanted to do.
My list turned into a plan that was transposed into a grid allowing me to cross things off as I made my way through them.
Regardless of how much I remind myself not to get carried away, I take on too many tasks that keep me tethered to the kitchen making treats and edible gifts for friends and family.
I could literally open a stall at the Farmers’ market selling gingerbread I have that many batches.
Picalilli, mince pies, panettone, bread, sauerkraut, I relentlessly push on regardless of anything else that might need doing.
I don’t really know why I love Christmas so much but I guess, like most things, it will have come from my childhood.
It was the one time in the year when we were all together, and a kind of fragile peace had a tendency to break out save the odd angry exchange between my parents because my father had decided to make a coffee while my mother was busy peeling the sprouts.
The kitchen, you see, belonged to my mother as it does to me now.
“Do you need any help?” one of the children will say, safe in the knowledge that I’ll refuse.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the concept of having a “happy place” and I have realised that the kitchen is one of mine so it’s little wonder I relish Christmas so much.
I feel capable and in control. I know what I’m doing and I’m confident in sorting it out if something goes wrong. These are feelings I don’t enjoy everywhere and which are understandably compelling.
I have realised as the years have passed that my mum was probably the same.
She seemed to feel happiest in service of some kind which is why we often didn’t eat until late evening on Christmas Day because she would have been working until late as a district nurse spending time with elderly people who didn’t have a family around them watching Noel Edmunds and eating Quality Street.
I think about my parents a lot at Christmas even though they’ve been dead for years.
I remember how my mother reinvented herself after retirement and seemed if anything more energetic than ever, and how my father declined slowly towards death the day he stopped working.
I feel grateful I am more like her in this regard but mindful of taking on too much, also like her.
Things came to head this week when I found myself thinking,
“If I walk the dogs quickly I can get on with some other things.”
Walking the dogs and being outside with my own thoughts in the middle of nature is one of the best parts of my life so trying to shoehorn it into a smaller space is a sure sign that my priorities are askew.
Reader, I left my Christmas grid and its tyrannical requirements and went up into the hills where we walked for miles before returning for tea and gingerbread.
Whatever you’re doing today and however you feel about Christmas try and remember that you matter too, and that the more you pay attention to that the easier it becomes to give your love and time to others.
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