Festive Spreadsheets

This cold has been brutal, but mercifully short. It peaked on Saturday when I spent the whole day ripping off or putting on my clothes thanks to a rollercoaster ride of fever (p.s. did you know that the French call roller coasters; les montagnes Russes? Thanks Duolingo for that nugget). I also lost my sense of taste and smell, which naturally meant I panicked that I had given everyone Covid. I did not have Covid. I just had a head stuffed full of snot. Awful for me, better for everyone else.

I woke up this morning feeling wobbly but much better. It all happened so fast I feel a bit like I’ve spent the last few days in a revolving door that has suddenly spit me out onto the pavement. Good but rather disorienting.

Tallulah and her girlfriend came to stay at the weekend. We told them we were a plague boat adrift on the tide. They didn’t care. They are used to me being weedy in the health department and they are young and frivolous with regard to their health because they have so much of it to spare.

Jason hid in our bedroom with biscuits and Dr. Who on iPlayer. He is anti-guest at the best of times so it was to be expected. He has already started worrying about the fact that all the children are coming home over Christmas. He has the ability to socialise for about six hours a week maximum. Christmas is a trial to him. Christmas on a boat may break him. I might have to cut him adrift in a dinghy for all our sakes.

He loves our children (as do I), but our collective family life has always been loud and chaotic. If you are a person who needs a few hours to decompress after socialising, it’s probably best not to visit us in full flow. We are a lot. Over the weekend, Tallulah and I were looking for some family photos and started watching some video footage I’ve taken over the years. We spent a wonderful couple of hours, hooting with laughter but Tallulah said: ‘I’ve never really realised before, quite how much of a lot we are en masse.’ She’s not wrong.

Jason is an intensely private man who likes solitude. He married me, who is the exact opposite. The fact that we have been together for twenty years says a lot about the strength of our love, because he has not had a minute’s peace since we first got together. High days and holidays are extraordinarily extra. It’s not about what we do. It’s all about who we are.

Christmas will be tricky this year for many reasons, not least of which is that we will all be being extra on the boat. It is not as small as people imagine, but it’s still going to be snug. We have two bedrooms and three kids plus Tallulah’s girlfriend staying over. We have managed to slot them all in for a night previously, but I fear the novelty of sleeping like sardines on the lounge floor may wear off fairly swiftly. I’m not entirely sure how many nights all of them will stay because time tabling is the biggest festive issue this year. Plus we stand a strong chance of getting on each other’s last nerve.

Tilly is currently in Finland. She comes back some time next week and will stay with us, but has promised to go to her partner’s family for Christmas and Boxing Day. In the past this hasn’t been a problem because we have all lived near to each other and travelling between residences was a hop, skip and a jump. Now it’s a two and a half hour slog down the M11. This means we will have an early Christmas with her before she goes away again. This has been tentatively scheduled for next Wednesday.

I am not even remotely prepared for this. Tallulah and Dani helped me put up some Christmas lights and tie some ornaments to a light fitting at the weekend. I have said no to a tree because it will take up too much room and be an absolute bastard to deal with. That’s as far as my decoration goes. The boat next to us has full Blackpool Illuminations going every night. I admire their spirit, but just looking at it makes me feel tired. If I feel we haven’t Christmasssed enough I will open the blinds and we can all stare at the neighbours’ efforts until we are replete.

I cannot buy food in advance because we simply don’t have the room to stockpile here. I bought a panettone last week because I got an offer on my Lidl app and have had to wedge it on a shelf behind the gadget that demists the windows. I may eat it this week to free up the space. The panettone, not the gadget.

I have also refused to cook two Christmas dinners, even though we are having two Christmas days. We never do turkey and all the trimmings, so I don’t have to worry about trying to cram a turkey the size of Switzerland into a boat the size of Chipping Norton but two massive roasts in quick succession is a recipe for a nervous breakdown. I have decreed that as Tilly is a vegan, we will have a buffet on the non-Christmas, Christmas Day and a roast on the actual Christmas Day, which saves me having to stress about a vegan alternative to rare roast beef.

I am imagining shopping for this food in the manner of a foraging expedition. We will eat whatever we manage to drag home. I hope to God we don’t end up gnawing disconsolately on parsnips in the manner of Blackadder. Plan Z is taking them all out for dinner. One of the joys of living in a capital city with many cultures and religions is that there are plenty of businesses that don’t feel the need to shut up shop over the festive period, or force you to eat microwaved turkey and stuffing that tastes like something that you found growing in your gutters. Curry may save us all. Or cream cheese and bagels. I wouldn’t be sad about that.

We always go to my mum’s house on Boxing Day, which we will do this year, although how many of us will go is unclear as Tallulah’s girlfriend is working on Christmas and Boxing Day in London and Tilly will be with her partner’s family. Oscar has a new girlfriend who lives in London. The relationship is in its infancy which is a blessing given current scheduling issues, otherwise I’d probably have to resort to a spreadsheet to keep track of everyone’s movements. As it is, I have had to take Derek into consideration because she can’t be left on the boat alone for too long in case she craps under the sofa and eats the curtains. I cannot believe that I am having to timetable in a cat’s needs, but there you go. She has always been a diva.

On top of this I have bought the grand total of two presents. What do you buy for a vegan who is about to fly off to Finland for another six months after Christmas? What do you buy for a man who lives on a boat and really only wants a Ferrari? A teenager who spends all his money on a social life I wish to know nothing about? Tallulah and Dani were easy, hence the two presents. Everyone else is a nightmare. I feel that envelopes stuffed with cash may be the way forward. It’s not pretty but it is useful. I for one would definitely be delighted if someone gave me an envelope full of fivers.

When the children were small, Christmas was a headache because everything kicked up a gear with Halloween, rocked on into bonfire night and immediately smashed into a relentless and unstoppable festive momentum from there. A multiplicity of school plays, festive trips to the pantomime and other ‘treats’ would cost you dearly in both time and money. Then there were the parties for which you had to provide a particular type of foodstuff which your child only remembered to tell you about approximately six hours before the party actually happened. Ditto: ‘I need to have a prawn costume, can you make one?’ ‘When do you need it by?’ ‘Tomorrow morning.’ etc. By the time you had to actually think about your own Christmas plans, you were usually on your last nerve.

Tilly once went out with a boy whose family did something festive for every day of advent. Volunteering to do twenty-four extra Christmassy things which require planning and attending on top of everything else was and remains bewildering to me. She was invited to a few of these advent spectaculars. Thankfully she reported that she hated them, so I never got badgered to do anything similar. I also firmly vetoed the whole Christmas Eve is a small Christmas with special gift boxes, clothes and food thing. It sounds charming, unless you are the one who has to actually prepare, host and pay for it on the night before you do it all again but more. Then it just sounds like utter insanity.

For the last two years Christmas was complicated by the fact that both Tilly and I worked in retail and her partner works as an A&E nurse. I thought this year would be easier. How wrong I was.

The good thing is that because we have never been a traditional family, we have never created hard and fast things that must be done in a certain way every year. This means that we are all trained to roll with the punches. This is what will save us.

We do actually have one tradition we like to keep. Not just for Christmas though, which is, when all is said and done, one single day in a whole year of other days that could be better or worse. Our tradition is that we continue to love each other, no matter what is going on, or where we are. We accept whatever the world throws our way, figure out a way to deal with it and move forwards together, even when we are apart. That’s all that matters. Not turkey or advent calendars, matching wrapping paper or the most thoughtful gifts. Just each other. Always.

Even if one of us has to hide in the bedroom with all the biscuits after an hour.