Never in my entire life have I felt Christmas was this long, lonely and boring as this year. My God! It was never-ending! If you have difficulties relating and you’ve just come from your umpteenth family reunion with yet another indigestion, know that we haven’t. It had a lot to do with the fact that it covid is still lurking around (not that I care, but others do), that we don’t drive, that most of my friends go back to wherever they come for the holidays and that we have a toddler on top of that. So when I say the days were never-ending, I really mean it. For 5 days in a row we woke up and watched cartoons, ate American pancakes, played, went outside so Madeleine would sleep or play some more and came inside to continue playing. Of course, there was some napping and some eating involved, but playing pretty much sums it all up. With the exception of 24th, when we met F’s family for dinner and exchanged gifts, there was nothing to do and no one to do it with.

And when the cafés did open on the 27th, Madeleine got a fever spell and we had to stay inside. We played with the train set- I was envisioning Madeleine playing by herself, but instead she would demand “shitte, shitte”, meaning sit down, sit down, played with the bears, played with lego and played with her newly inherited kitchen from her sweet cousin Nora. Yesterday I had a couple of hours of driving and I was so happy to be getting out of the cosy prison, I could have jumped for joy.

This being said, I’ve always had trouble dealing with the holidays. Back when I was a kid it was because there was too much eating and too little freedom to do whatever one felt like doing, now because it’s too much family (when we’re not dealing with a pandemic) and the people you’d rather spend the holidays with are away. And I generally find myself sulking for the shops and the coffee shops to be open, not that I necessarily would go shopping, but I guess I just like to know everything is in place, the way it always is.

Today is kindergarten day and I’m trying to make good use of this “free time” by vacuuming, washing some clothes, baking bread and meeting a friend for coffee. Outside there’s lots of snow and I should really take up skiing, had I just known where to start. 😉

xxx, Alina