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Last minute supermarket trip this morning. It’s always a bit of a gamble at this time of year. Will the shops be busy with last minute shoppers?Will all the produce be gone? Was it crazy to leave it so late - or smart? Would food be fresh? Would there be bargains to be had?
It turned out to be pretty excellent timing. There was lots of stuff and everything on my list was available, the canapés were all reduced, even though the sell-by date was tomorrow (because the shops aren’t open tomorrow) and there was basically no queue at the check out. What a result!
I have a supermarket issue though - it’s not particularly Christmassy. I fastidiously save up all plastic wrapping that has the symbol saying that it can be recycled at large supermarkets. I don’t think many people do this, but I have a plastic bag in the kitchen that I fill with recyclable plastic and take in every now and again. I think most other people only use the plastic bin to recycle supermarket carriers (though the single use ones are no longer available in many places), but I have a big bag full of the wrappers from bread and bananas and any packaging that says it can be recycled. But the bin at the supermarket is not only very small and thus pretty much always full, but the slit which you have to put your bags through is tiny and very hard to use. I’d like to be able to push my whole bag of plastic into the bin or just lift the lid and drop it in, but you can’t do that and so seem to be expected to push each tiny wrapper through individually and even then it’s quite hard to do. It’s like they don’t want you to recycle your plastic.
Like someone else before me I just put my bulging sack of Christmas plastic on top of the bin.
Come on big supermarkets. Make it easier to recycle our recyclable plastic.
Ernie was very anxious that he wouldn’t be asleep when Santa arrived and so went to bed in good time. We’d shown him the Santa tracker and told him that Santa was at least four hours away, but he was still terrified. Is it fair to expose a child to this level of anxiety for something that isn’t actually real? I don’t know. I was just glad that it was very easy to get him to bed. Phoebe wanted to sleep on the floor because apparently she’d done that last Christmas and I guess she wanted to keep her tradition going. I allowed it.
Obviously we had to wait til they were sound asleep before setting up the big con, so everyone had some drinks (non-alcoholic for me obvs). We also had to get the turkey in to slow cook it overnight and in all the excitement we almost forgot about putting out the presents. That must happen sometimes and that’s got to be quite a tricky disaster to navigate. I was ready with an alibi if the kids saw us coming downstairs with the presents - we could just say silly Santa had left them on the roof - but if the kids came downstairs to empty pillowcases and uneaten pies and unbitten carrot- they could be scarred for life.
Luckily we didn’t forget and everything went smoothly and the turkey got an orange and an onion up its arse and we went to bed knowing everything was prepared.
Next year I suspect that one of our kids won’t believe in Santa any more, though she remains fairly convinced for now. But want to enjoy the magic this year just in case. It will be nice when they know it’s not real so don’t get stressed out though.
I got a Christmas present for myself,
Colditz by Ben Macintyre and ploughed through the first two chapters. It’s right up my alley and excellent so far. Hopefully I can tempt Ben on to Book Club in 2023.
