So, after having our first baby, I was thrilled that I could finally embrace every single bit of Christmas magic. Children enable you to find magic every day, it’s true. But for most of us, with jobs and errands and other caring responsibilities, stopping for long enough to see that is hard. However, at Christmas, it is right there. The sparkly lights, the carol concerts, the fact that for once you stop to thank people who help you all year round (watch out for a post coming up in December about how young children develop empathy, it’s an interesting read, particularly if you’ve ever tried to wrangle a snatched toy out of a sibling’s sticky hand). The joy is all planned in and readily available at Christmas. It would be so easy.
Or so I thought. It turns out that, in reality, Christmas with children is ten times more intense (and tiring) than Christmas with children in your imagination.
There’s the Christmas dinner that goes from being a relaxing day-long affair (ooh why don’t we pop some bacon in with the Brussel sprouts and open another bottle of something fizzy) to a last-minute dash swigging Baileys out of the bottle because THE KIDS ARE HUNGRY AND LOSING THE PLOT BECAUSE THEY’VE BEEN UP SINCE 4AM. One year, with a three-month-old baby, I decided to invite everyone to our house because, “I can do it all!!!” (said in a rather high-pitched voice). It was an absolute disaster as my husband attempted to cook dinner in a too-small oven and entertain our other children, while I breast-fed our baby, sitting looking as zombie-like as I felt on the sofa and hoping that no-one had heard me say that it was turkey for dinner because what I meant was potatoes. And gravy. But mostly potatoes.
There’s the school Christmas fair that sounds idyllic until you realise that it involves hundreds of kids in a school hall, high on sugar and excitement, racing from stall to stall while you stagger behind carrying everyone’s coats and school bags, trying to console them because they haven’t won anything on the tombola for the tenth time, leaving you the hottest and most stressed-out you will EVER be. Seriously, MI5 should use that experience as part of their recruitment process, it is an extremely high-pressure environment.
There’s the trip to see Santa where you spend at least an hour in a queue, with 50 other knackered parents, nagging them to stand still and be patient, and bribing them with sweets, only to spend five minutes in a room where they won’t speak or even look at the random stranger in a red suit, before leaving again, £15 lighter, with something that resembles a McDonalds Happy Meal toy, more sweets, and (if you have older kids) a laborious explanation about how, no, that wasn’t the real Santa because, yes, he looks different to the one in the school hall the day before. And that’s if you’re lucky. Tears are not uncommon.
If you’re anything like me, you start off December all gung-ho, with a holiday season grand door opening, both literal and metaphorical. Then ten days later you’re forgetting advent doors, jumper days, to book time off work for Christmas crafts, the name of the second cousin that apparently you still have to send a card to, even your own name as you count down to the main event like a deer in the headlights. The day itself then happens and you realise you’ll need a full 364 more to recover.
And don’t even get me started on presents. For our daughter’s first ‘proper’ Christmas we bought her an entire Peppa Pig world. Every character, a couple of houses, Peppa goes to the park, Peppa goes to the zoo – you name it, I bought it. My husband went along with the idea because, let’s face it, neither of us knew what we were doing, and she had recently shown a slight interest in watching Peppa Pig.
We brought her downstairs, I was already practically weeping at how beautiful it was all going to be, and she stood in the middle of the floor and wailed. She wouldn’t open any of the presents and even when she (we) managed to half open them later she had ZERO and I mean ZERO interest in them. Of course she didn’t, she was 18 months old, and they didn’t do anything. She did, however, enjoy pulling every single bauble off the Christmas tree. No one tells you that either, do they, that your beautiful tree will require the sort of barricade Extinction Rebellion would be proud of.
Ok, so I have exaggerated heavily for effect. I still absolutely LOVE Christmas with kids. There is plenty of joy to be found, a lot of love, togetherness and caring for others, and loads of fun. It is still one of my favourite times of year to be a parent.
But Christmas with young children isn’t what I expected, and I think it is ok, in fact more than ok, to acknowledge that. Because actually, when you do acknowledge that, you reduce the pressure a little. You laugh when you burn the mince pies instead of cry. Or you don’t make the mince pies in the first place. You say no to the Santa visit if it doesn’t bring any pleasure for anyone. Or you approach the Santa visit a little differently, because this can be a magical experience, done the right way. You are more able to avoid the pressure to go big on presents if you don’t want to or can’t afford to. You see the house decorated like a spread from Hello magazine on Instagram, and you think “How lovely”, before returning to your own tree that looks like someone threw the decorations on it from the North Pole while blindfolded, and you smile. And then you get yourself one of those shop-bought mince pies instead of worrying about it.
Which is why we want to share more of these stories with you over the coming weeks.
Check out our one-off Christmas podcast episode where Jennie and Alistair explain why a visit to Santa can be a daunting experience for a child, and why our children won’t miss out if we don’t do ALL of the activities and more.
We’ll also be writing about why we might need to give our children a break over Christmas (and how to do it), and where you can find inspiration to look after yourself at this time of year. The My First Five Years online community will also be sharing your expectation versus reality stories, which will hopefully make you smile and reassure you that WHATEVER you have planned and WHATEVER ends up happening, you are doing an amazing job.