the christmas spirit…

so it’s that time of the year again and let’s just say it brings a sense of unease….it’s 2.06am and I have ordered groceries online, comforted and fed an upset little boss, checked facebook, email and the closing price of bluescope steel shares and here I am at barry….with an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach that I can’t explain. it’s a combination of worry that I may have forgotten something important and stress over the things I need to do. ridiculous really…if I have forgotten something important, well, I can’t change that and the things I have yet to do revolve around having a presentable environment for our christmas guests. the way I stress about this sort of thing you would think it is important when really it’s not. would I like to have the guest room all decked out with matching pillows and fancy linen – sure why not – do I hope that my guests are happy to have a clean and comfortable bed to sleep in – definitely…will there be clean towels in the bath room – yes – will they be fluffy and matching – probably not….will the floors be clean before the guests arrive – yes – will it still be clean when they get here – this depends on MrRooben and his desire to dig a hole in the garden and then run sand through the house at warp speed using the walls to stop himself as he slides on the floorboards. the amusing part about all my worry is that this year I have less guests at christmas than I have ever had and yet I still feel as though I have so much to do. my besty is going to thailand. smart move sister. in all honesty I enjoy having people over and cooking, drinking and eating and I look forward to christmas morning with a childlike enthusiasm that makes Mr B Badger.com shake his head. this year I will miss my father dragging out the present opening for as long as possible allowing only one person to open a present at a time and ordering breaks so that the presents last longer. we will probably do the same thing here and to ensure that our present opening goes for as long as possible I re-wrapped the gift my brother and sister-in-law sent for little boss into individual presents. australia post didn’t leave me much choice actually, by the time it had arrived it looked like it was wrapped by wolverine. I just can’t shake the feeling that I should be cleaning the blinds and washing the windows….like my guests are not stopping for lunch unless I pass the white glove test. maybe it’s that unspoken belief that as a stay at home mum I have all this time on my hands…tell that to the endless cups of cold yorkshire tea I have not had the time to drink in the past six months – and at the price we pay for yorkshire blend I have considered heating it up in the microwave. in all honesty even if I did have a spare couple of hours in the day I would much rather spend them making funny faces at little boss than washing walls. I don’t want to look back on my parental leave and think how great it was that I cleaned the house every day or explain to little boss that I missed her first word because she couldn’t shout it above the noise of the hoover. this year christmas day will hopefully be the most chilled out of all time. it is going to be forty degrees in the shade so we will be having a barby and salad and then spend the rest of the day floating around the pool – bliss. by then I will have forgotten all my worries about whether the shower glass is stain free and will just enjoy my time spent with friends and family having a laugh – mostly at ourselves….