"A Photograph is Memory in the Raw": #It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas...

Eeeeeeverywhere I goooooo#

Currently listening to: Maria Maria (Santana) // Youm Wara Youm (Cheb Mami)

Currently pondering: how little should I eat tomorrow if I'm wearing a bodycon dress that night/ Christmas dinner x 2, is it too late for a bubble bath?

Those of you who know me, know how I love Christmas, to the extent it takes over my brain from my birthday onwards, and I'm bellydancing to Christmas songs (yes, it can be done so lower that eyebrow please)/stocking up on copious amounts of stuffing (who doesn't like a good stuffing? Ho hum..)/ finding Christmassy cocktails to accompany meals (egg nog is so last decade darling, it's all about the Pimms Winter Cup or a Whisky Ginger).

Before we begin, I'd like to take a moment to send a little prayer/ mental hug/ well-meaning wish to all those who are struggling to be where they want to be this Christmas. Asides from the weather, there are plenty of other horrible circumstances dividing people from loved ones which sadly cannot be overcome. I have nothing worthy of moaning about right now, so God can take my prayer and dedicate it to someone else out there who needs it a little more than I do.

Tonight's blog will revolve around "Firsts". Behold as I take several loose threads and tie them all together in a big Christmassy bow!

This Christmas, we will be setting an extra place at the table for the latest addition to the family: Little baby Luke. This will be his first Christmas, following on from a multitude of firsts I've experienced with him today alone. I was left to babysit him for a while today, and we made our way through:

1. My first experience of one of his fussy/sleepy tantrums

2. My first successful attempt to put him to sleep

3. My first successful attempt to make him giggle, burble and babytalk to me.

4.....His first experience of falling out of his cot and landing face first on the bedroom floor.

After describing to Beau last night this parental calling to do your damndest to protect your offspring, including damning the ground children graze their knees on, I found my heart breaking while consoling the poor baby from his rude awakening. Why aren't floors bouncy?! Why did the cot barrier slip down?! And how very dare gravity for pulling him downwards so hard during the fall!? Curse you physics, I have yet a score to settle with you. Baby is OK though, after 15mins of cuddling and fussing, we realised (get ready for a little chuckle) that the poor lamb had messed himself due to the fright of falling so far, but after a very smelly nappy change, he was all giggles and spit bubbles again with the help of his rattle toy. Another first: seeing someone literally scared poopless. But DAMN is this kid a happy child! He sings back to you as you sing him to sleep. Regardez-vous, and die-ez vous from cuteness as Grandma puts the little tyke to sleep (right before the cot-falling incident):

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That beautiful child. Love it.

I also got my first kiss under the mistletoe this week. *Cheshire cat grin* After 4 years, we still have firsts to conquer. Next on the list we have our first Christmas together! I have to admit, a lot of my excitement for this is due to having 2 Christmas dinners :D I'm a fat person trapped in a slightly less fat person's body, and the former is a real foody. I fear not ye carbs, nor ye fats, but I welcome you with outstretched sweatpants and a willing, yet clogged, heart. Or to be more accurate, a maxi dress and stretchy knickers. ...I think I get why the boy thinks of me more as a comical than a seksual being. Pity.

And for the first time (but a few weeks ago) Momma referred to Alex and I as our own little family unit, followed by his mother then giving me (as a Birthday present) our first living-together house furnishing which only further cemented my starry-eyed "Really? You guys take us that seriously? We've started our journey into adulthood and begun the process of starting a family which proceeds the physical act of starting a family which itself would notoccuruntilafterenteringthesanctityofmarriage? Awww you guuuys!" Just to clarify, it's not that I'm exceptionally broody (all the time) that I've thought ahead to the future. It's due to the obscene extent to which I need to have things planned, organised and under control. I'm the person who although enjoys being surprised, if I know I'm being surprised but don't know what the surprise is, will be pretty crabby until I find out. I nearly fell out with Him because he knew what my birthday present was and wasn't telling me. I'm a control freak. I'll deal with it, eventually, I guess. I think you know you're part of the family when your mother in law not only leaves you bikini wax strips on the other side of the bedroom door in the morning, but also declares you'll be the one cleaning her up when in her old age she begins wetting the bed. Unconditional love huh?

So, the overwhelming sense of family-expansion and newness of stuff have been the only things helping me overcome the huge irritation I am finding this Christmas. (N.B. It is always CHRISTMAS, not "the Holiday Season" or "Xmas", but CHRISTMAS. Let's keep the Christ in Christmas yo. The aforementioned labels only make it sound tacky and impersonal, when it should be all lovely, and familial, and belly-bloated.) I digress. As always.
I can't be the only one who's noticed that money just is not stretching as far as it used to? Stocking fillers are now costing just as much as the main gift itself, and the shop offerings- although vast- are terribly uninspiring. I can't help but imagine the accompanying sheepish grin I'd have to pull off while presenting these gifts to convey the sense of "No, don't even bother looking enthusiastic about this epilator/book highlighting how terrible old age is/chocolaty hindrance to your diet. I too, know this is crap".
Instead I'm taking to battle both situations with making my own gifts, which is taking forever now that I've adopted an extra set of parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, nephews but at least then I can get away with a "Look at how much time I slaved over this for you!" call for appreciation. I'll make it up to them all with better budgeting skills and presents around their upcoming birthdays. If in a few years they still feel raw about it, and I'm earning enough, I'll wow them all with an engraved gold ingot or something. I dunno. This frustration with gift-giving really wound me up though, to the extent to which I completely forgot the fact that the present part of my usual Christmas day takes about 30mins. A minuscule portion of the day compared to how long we spend cooking food in our pyjamas, peeling brussel sprouts with a festive film on, eating till guts bust all over the table, amassing on the couch, cuddly-cosy and warm talking about the latest news/reviewing the year and watching Dr Who. Get ready for the ever classic notion: Christmas is about so much more than a few pretty boxes under the tree. I forgot about how nauseatingly happy I was when I made my nephew laugh for the first time today, that this Christmas day I'll be hell-bent on taking beautiful pictures of him in a Zebra costume and dressing him in discarded ribbon to care about how defeated I felt buying gifts for everyone. I'm also blessed to have such a wonderful relationship with someone, that I get included in their family Christmas/birthday/anniversary plans as an in-group member. I'd need one hell of a reality slap if I could overlook the family-bonding, tension-resolving, religious importance of Christmas for the stress of finding the non-existent "perfect gift". Sod it, hope they all like lopsided sewing attempts, I've sacrificed touch sensation in four fingers for this.