Rules for a Perfect Family Christmas

I’ve been contacted by John Lewis (Britain’s favourite retailer) to participate in their latest initiative to help families get inspired for the holiday season. I love John Lewis, we asked for vouchers for them as our wedding gifts. Anyone that knows me will know that it’s the one place that I recommend time and time again, and I try to buy most big purchases there. It’s also fairly local to me and so extremely practical. I could go on and on, and to be frank I’m sure you don’t really want to know the top ten reasons why I love John Lewis. After all, if you are one of my friends you will have heard them often enough! The prospect of some vouchers to spend in this most esteemed store has lured me into getting involved with this initiative.

The idea is to let readers know some of the rules for our perfect family Christmas. I have to admit that for me, this one is quite hard, as I quite simply dislike Christmas and have to force myself to participate in all Christmas matters. I turn into a bit of a misery from October onwards when the torture of those annoying songs and twinkly lights everywhere make venturing outside of my house difficult. It’s even worse when it infiltrates the very walls of our house through the television and decorations. However, I do try and for the sake of the kids I am going to try my very hardest to be a cheery little Christmas fairy this year. That’s better than an Elf. In fact, my generosity towards this idea knows no bounds as this year I’ve gone all out and allowed our local churches Travelling Crib to spend a night at our house. Toddler boy is positively exploding with excitement at the prospect. I hope he doesn’t hide the knitted baby Jesus.

Henceforth, I present the Being a Mummy Household’s Christmas Rules:

The Children ( to vaguely include the husband);

• Do not remove wrapping paper before 5 am. I mean the presents, not the children themselves.
• Absolutely no chocolate before breakfast, unless you are mummy and you can sneak a quick Cherry Brandy Liqueur in, whilst you are pretending to look for something in the fridge.
• Save that tantrum till tea-time if possible.

The Christmas Meal

• Creamy leaks are a compulsory thing, they require effort to make but are lovely
• Everyone must wear their hat
• Mince pies must be eaten after the pudding, with cream

Entertainment

• At least one game of Trivial Pursuit
• A nice morning stroll

Decorations

• These must be minimal and simple
• No modern colour schemes, good old Victorian colours around our house
• The children must provide, through hard manual labour, at least a few decorations, be it paper chains or Christmas tree ‘things’

So there you have it, when Christmas comes around you will of course receive a full report. However, as this blog has been going for a couple of years, feel free to search my archives for a flavour of Christmas past in our house.