Christmas? It's Not What You Do, It's How You Do It....

Every Christmas I make a Christmas Star. Not out of tissue paper, or papier maché, or glitter-festooned cardboard…

No, my Christmas Star is made out of a sweet bread dough, with finely grated orange rind, glazed and plaited and with a candle in the middle.

I have been making this star for yonks, ever since the kids were small and it is something we eat on Christmas Eve with the candle lit and a jar of Nutella to spread on thick slices because it goes so well with the mild orange tang. Now my girls are making it themselves in their homes with their kiddos…

This is Emily’s. See it in the middle with the old candle going? I bake with a greased cork in the centre, which when removed leaves a socket for the candle. Ems didn’t have a cork so she made do with some scrumpled up silver foil.

While we are talking about traditions, we have developed the ideal Christmas morning breakfast. It evolved after doing the whole sausage, bacon, fried egg, fried bread and mushroom scenario which was tasty but which left us with a problem on several levels:

1.       We felt so full and bloated we didn’t really feel like Christmas dinner

2.       Breakfast lasted so long I had to go straight from the table to the cooker to start cooking the Christmas dinner that nobody felt like eating, but which had to be made, because that is what we do

3.       There was very little time to open presents

4.       Because the boys cooked such a massive breakfast they felt morally above any domestic slavery chores for the rest of the day. A point of view which I swiftly disarmed them of [or should that be; a point of view of which I swiftly disarmed them]. I went to a Grammar school and I can’t help it…

So this gave birth to a brainwave. I refused to let them pass on breakfast and just eat sweets from their stockings, so I settled on cereals. Not any cereals, no. I bought several assortment packs of those individual small boxes of the exotic cereals I never used to let them eat – the chocolate sugary ones. For kids brought up on either Weetabix or porridge, this was like manna from Heaven. And these fluffy, crunchy cereals don’t fill you up, it’s as if you have eaten air. Perfect!

Even though my youngest is now 17, we still lay the table on breakfast morning with the assortment pack…

But some new ideas are not ever going to make it to the ‘traditions’ level.

One year [I was probably pregnant and tired] I said to the children;

‘You can choose any dinner you like on Christmas Day! Just because Daddy and I like roast turkey doesn’t mean you do. So, what would you really, really like to eat as a treat?’

They took a vote and they came up with oven chips and fish fingers.

Why?

And so that is what they got, but I never gave them a choice again. Too much power in the hands of children is not often a good thing.

But hey ho, this Christmas the entire dinner was prepped and cooked by one of my girls who still lives at home. I won’t give her name because she would be embarrassed. But it was the nicest Christmas dinner I have ever eaten. So now of course I will expect her to do it forever.

Saggy

[With some photos from Ellie - not the one who cooked the Christmas dinner]

The Older Woman at Christmas....

When you're over 60 and Christmas is coming...

What have you got to look forward to?

• For a start, there are the grandchildren if you're lucky. You can still enjoy the little ones without the responsibility of making their Christmas magical.

• If you still have to produce a huge Christmas dinner for friends or family, you aren't fazed. You've done it all before. You know it's not the end of the world if it's not perfect.

• You have hindsight.You know how to avoid the more obvious pitfalls of the festive season.

• You can open your presents when you like, you can start on the sherry at 9am if you want to. You don't have to set a good example to anyone.

• You don't have unrealistic expectations of the festive season.

• By now you shouldn't be worrying about what other people think of you. So if you can't or don't want to send Christmas cards you don't have to. Do your own thing your own way. It's perfectly possible to do that without being horrible to others.

• You will have learnt how to make other people happy without making yourself miserable or spending a fortune.

• If the disorder and lack of routine does get to you and things start to get a bit much, you know it will pass. You don't let it get to you and drain your energy. It will pass soon enough.

• You realise how precious these times are, so you can overlook the little niggles and rise above any potential disputes.

• If you are lucky enough to have parents still around, you know you need to make the most of them. You don't know how many more Christmases they will be with you. 

• You are also by now keeping one eye on the future and are aware that this may be one last place to set a good example. So you treat your parents how you hope your children will treat you in years to come.

Happy Christmas

Moo

We were ahead of our time in the 'Planners' game....

If you have kids you need to plan…

I know I have had more kids than is strictly normal, but my most manic time was when I had just the first two as I had to look after more than one person at a time and it confused me. It soon became clear that if I was to get through the day/week/month/the rest of my life sane, then I would have to adopt some mechanism of organisation.

Now, people that know me well can testify that ‘being organised’ isn’t my strong suit [glad my husband isn’t likely to read this…] but needs must I always say. And needs there certainly were.

Before I reveal the lengths I was driven to in order to keep one nostril above the water, I will add a disclaimer;

Systems have to be followed to have a chance of working and a] I didn’t always follow them and, b] depending on my state of health and level of the kids’ cooperativeness, they didn’t always work when I tried to follow them…

But hey, we all get sick days and kids on wild sprees and days when everything goes WRONG, but hand on heart, I can truly say that having some sort of framework is like a comforting scaffolding to hang your life on, and to come back to as if to a raft on a choppy sea.

Because that's what systems are. They are scaffolding, designed to hold your life together while you are working on it. Systems can be a scary concept, but think of it like this: my way of writing down what I need to get done in a week, and allocating time to it, and making sure I don’t forget anything the most important stuff is my system. That’s all.

So, the more kids that came along the more I had to plan and write down and it made me look organised when I wasn’t really, I was just surviving.

My first attempts at planning were ripping pages out of note books and making a list of everything I had to do THAT DAY, which was fine in as far as it went, but days would suddenly pop up out of nowhere and I would find it was someone’s birthday that I had forgotten. And I had forgotten because I was concentrating on one day at a time and not looking ahead. At all. There are times when we must do this [just given birth, bereavement etc] but in the main, a little bit of looking ahead saves time and upsetting your mother-in-law.

I am now going to reveal to you something I devised together with Moo when we were both eyebrow deep in kids. I truly believe we were the pioneers of all the swanky business/life planners that all these cool entrepreneurs are trying to sell us. I called mine ‘Memory’ and here it is:

Yes, it’s a scruffy old notebook, but it contained gold dust. So, here’s how it worked:

1.       Open out a spiral-bound notebook so it lays flat, and you have a double page spread looking up at you

2.       Get a ruler and pencil and draw columns. On the first page draw a narrow, medium and wide column

3.       On the second [facing] page draw a narrow, wide, and then medium column. Ish.

4.       So across the two pages we have six columns of varying widths

5.       Then divide the first five columns into seven rows by drawing six equally space lines horizontally, leaving the last column to run undivided down the page.

6.       First column call DATE, Second column DATES TO REMEMBER, third column JOBS & PLANS, fourth column MENU, fifth column LOCAL SHOPPING and last column SUPERMARKET

Thus:

  

The planner worked in this way; each week you filled in the day and date in the first column. In the second column Dates to Remember, you would fill in any birthday, anniversaries, wedding or hospital/GP/optician/school appointments. In the third column you planned your jobs for the week, like washing, making a birthday cake or hoovering the upstairs etc. As you could see which days were heavy with appointments you could devise a work schedule that left busy days free. In the fourth column you would plan a menu for the whole week, making sure you kept simple or reheated meals for complicated days, in the next column you would fill in the local shop. In the days of yore when we all could get to a local Post Office this was great as you could make sure you bought the birthday cards and stamps a few days before the birthday came up in the Dates to Remember column. Or you could buy your fresh meat from the local butcher at the beginning of the week as you looked at your menu. The last column was Supermarket [or weekly] shop, which is not divided up horizontally. The idea of this is, if you leave the planner open on the side, as soon as you run low of something you write it down straight away in this column and it is automatically part of your next weekly shop. The rest is added by looking down at your menu for the week.

OK, so we don’t all have local shops anymore [this was from 1984 after all], and it may well be too labour intensive for busy working Mums to draw up every week.

 But you must admit, we were ahead of the planning game….

Saggy

Making every day count

This can be a great time of year for families, especially those with children. Just think how we look back through rosy specs at the Christmases of our childhood. If we were lucky, our parents made sure we had a great time. But one way or another, memories were laid down that we still (hopefully) cherish to this day. This is what we want to do for our children.

But I don’t want to talk about Christmas just now, because I think there are so many opportunities to lay a foundation of happy and good memories all through the year. And when Christmas comes around, it won't be just about presents and fancy food.

And, although we have the big celebrations that we all share, there are our own special ones – birthdays and anniversaries for example.

The milestone birthdays,

The anniversaries....

Celebrating these show our children we care about our family and teach respect and thankfulness for each other.

Children’s birthdays….. 

 …great for cake, big smiles and shiny eyes.

Looking through our old family photos recently, it seemed as though every other picture showed someone being presented with a birthday cake while the rest of the family looked on lovingly. I don't know if it was love for the birthday boy/girl or the prospect of cake. Either way, they all looked pretty happy.

How many birthday cakes I seem to have made in my time! Not always a very professional job, but each and every one of them made with love.

Big celebrations are wonderful, but let’s not forget that we can have a festive outlook on life every day in a quiet way too. When we celebrate we show how glad we are to have each other, but if we don’t have that in our hearts every day, the big celebrations will just be emptiness.

Happy times spent together at home,

Days out and about…

 

…laughing together – all everyday ways of celebrating life.

There are countless ways to make things just that bit more special.

When my children were young, we used to celebrate Friday evenings with Friday Night Treat. Just a special time for the younger children with something nice to eat and an extended story time.

I can't say I was the best at being festive, but now I'm old enough to have a fair degree of hindsight, I appreciate so much more what these things mean.

Let’s use every chance to express our thankfulness and gratitude. For each other, our families and friends and for the life we have.

Moo

GETTING OLDER IS BETTER THAN I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE…

I’m nearly 60 and I love it!

One of the advantages of getting older is that we have got memories. Whether we like it or not, we will have memories and experiences – some of which we want to remember and some we don’t. But hey – if you are young, or have kids I would say this to you…

One day you will look back and have memories of the time you are living now, and now is the time to make sure the memories you have in the future are good ones. So;

·         Let’s not waste time brooding over bad things people say or do to us

·         Be as generous as we can be to others as this nearly always makes good memories

·         Be honest and be kind, so we have nothing to reproach ourselves for when we get to 60

·         Make a decision not to be bitter about stuff, it saps our energy

·         Look to the future with hope and vision

·         Be aware that we make memories for your kids.

Now, there’s a thing.

Making memories for kids. I hope my kids won’t remember the times I lost my temper with them because they were just so, so, annoying, or hitting their siblings, or ignoring me, or being rude. Because as an adult I should have been developing strategies for coping with annoying, bullying, naughty and rude children in an adult way. Rather than yelling back or locking myself in my bedroom.

But we live and learn. And I did learn, maybe too slowly, but I did. And when we love our kids, we want to make them happy, don’t we? And what I learnt was that my main priority was to see to their needs, not to make my house look like the Ideal Home exhibition. Which actually was not even possible for me as we were so poor when our kids were small. We just have to learn to not mind, and to not compare ourselves with other people.

Talking of memories one of the things our kids used to love to do the most was this:

Now, it may not be immediately obvious to you what this is, but it was something I used to do under my parents dining room table, costs no money, and keeps kids quiet for ages.

It’s a den.

Remember them?

I think there is a sofa under there somewhere, and it looks like they have taken a cot apart for roof struts, and they seem to have purloined every single quilt, blanket and cushion in the house – but it was a very quiet morning for me. Hallelujah.

Any remembrance of the process of clearing the whole thing up at the end of the day has been lost in the mists of time, but I’m sure I made them do it at some point. Though in the summer hols it was just so much easier to leave it there…

And another thing. Jumping in puddles. Why stop them? They will do it anyway. I started off saying ‘Don’t jump in the puddles’ just because my Mum said it to me, and OK on the way to school is not a good time. But why not let them do it on the way home and give them clean socks in the morning, if they have some. It would save so much nervous energy just if we don’t automatically keep stopping them doing stuff that isn’t dangerous, but just inconvenient.

See here;

He wanted to get in the water. He had no swimming stuff. I thought; his clothes will get wet. Then I thought; it’s a hot day, what the heck. So he did. He was happy for a long time.

Kids love taking things apart, which is fine as long as you don’t expect them to put them back together. Just give ‘em an old radio or laptop and a screwdriver and leave them alone.

And stories! 

When I was young we had no alternative at night time to having a book read to us. There were no story cassette tapes in the early 60’s, no CD’s for Mum to switch on and leave us to it, no iPad etc. She had to physically sit with us and turn the pages as she read to us and that is a different experience than listening to a tape.

And I know Mums are busier now, and they go to work and have so many tasks set by primary school these days from spelling tests, to reading books, to times tables, to projects and book days.. but every now and then, to snuggle down with your kids and read to them is magical.

There is one story book I remember from my teeny tiny years.

Now, although Noddy shaped my concept of the importance of keeping your house 'spick and span', and how you must clear away the tea things and wash up your cup and saucer and shake the crumbs off the red and white checked tabled cloth outside, before you can go out for the day etc etc,  I would say 'My First Book' was the bedrock of my childhood, and bathed me with a sense of security.

Yup, the day was orderly.

     

Now these two pages I could recite from memory to my kids when I put them down for a rest after lunch. They knew what I was going to say, it was a ritual. Though for the boys I changed it to, 

'After dinner I go for my rest;

I'd rather play, but Mummy knows best.

A favourite car I take with me;

The time passes quickly then, you see.'

And I never insisted they slept. I used to say, 'read [or play with your car] for one hour then I will come and get you'. And they usually fell asleep anyway...

And of course, Daddy [the handsome, reliable breadwinner] would appear at the end of the day after earning the money to pay for the house and home that Mummy kept so 'spick and span':

Happy Days....

Saggy

When the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

If you ever feel down, or in a bad mood, or like the world is going to hell in a handbasket, then a kid can brighten the day.

The thing is; they don’t care!

They know nothing, they have few needs, they have no sense of guilt - consequently they have a burden-free attitude to life, and that is infectious. Not any old kid will do. They have to be under about 10, depending on their mental and emotional maturity.

Or maybe 8; kids grow up so fast these days. Or 5 even. But preferably a baby or toddler, if possible.

You need a basically happy one, well fed and not tired, hopefully with a sense of humour. They will play peek-a-boo whether you want to or not, they will emit great belches and laugh, they will splash in puddles without worrying about whether they have clean dry socks in the drawer or not. They will share their last bit of chocolate, all you have to do is open your mouth and they shove it in. They have not realised that when it’s gone, it’s gone. They are liberated. They are free….

I can tell you, I’ve had a kid or two or three to keep my nostrils above the water. They are just fun. Yes I know they cry, and vomit and produce diarrhoea in the supermarket. But it’s not their fault. How can you keep a straight face when you have a row of little kids on the sofa laughing at their toes? Or a toddler, seeing you are miserable, will force the corners of your mouth up with their index fingers to make you smile. And you do.

My kids have kept me sane. Or have they warped my sense of humour? I never can tell. They seem to love me whether I am sane or not, ridiculous or not.

Toddlers don’t need you to put your makeup on for them to think you are beautiful. They don’t notice if you haven’t lost the ‘baby weight’ or have been a stone over weight for the last year. They just want you to hug them and read them bedtime stories. To put plasters on their grazed knee and to think they are brave for swinging so high at the play park. To put bubbles in their bath and tuck them into a warm bed. To put honey on their crumpets and cut up their toast.

And I can’t help thinking of all the Mums in this world that can’t do that. Who can’t keep their babies safe, clean and well-fed. Whether they are homeless single Mums surviving in hostels in the UK, asylum seekers in squalid camps, or battled scarred and frightened in areas of conflict. There are thousands of Mums who yearn to make the lives of their kids more tolerable; yet even here the brightness of their kids’ smiles on a good day will light up their world.

Let’s not take our kids for granted. We owe them a great deal.

Saggy 

And so to sleep…...or not.

So, we've heard about the 50s.

                

 How did it go for us when it was our turn to rock the cradle?

Well, at first I was a complete rookie. Luckily my mum was always there at the end of the phone. She was at the end of the phone, but I wasn't. No mobiles of course, in the 1970s, and we didn't even have a landline. So if I didn’t know what to do next, I had to bundle the baby into his pram and wheel him down to the nearest pay phone,

“ Muuum, he won't stop crying! What do I do?”

Sometimes just being pushed in the pram would have quieted him by the time I got to the phone if I was lucky. If not, then Mum’s calm advice would give me the confidence to cope.

 Getting babies and toddlers to sleep at night seemed to be an important part of life in the following years. I had babies who were good sleepers and, thinking I'd cracked it, I got quite smug.

Then along came the non-sleepers, and made me think again.

This is me with one of my non-sleepers. Neither of us has had much sleep by the look of it.

Truth is, I guess, some babies sleep more than others. And if you were to ask me if they all sleep through the night eventually; I should say – not necessarily. I still can't get my last one to sleep all night, and she's nearly 21.

But, on the other hand, there have been some who could sleep on a washing line. A 3-hour nap in the afternoon and still go to bed at 6.30 and sleep right through. I reckon they would still be doing it now if they could get away with it…

Here is a selection of things I was told by other mums to try on sleepless babies and toddlers…

1)      Put the vacuum cleaner on. It will make them shut up and go to sleep.

Hmmm….

2)      Drive them about in the car. They will drop off quickly.

Well, yes, probably. But then you must either keep driving (not ideal if you are half dead with weariness) or you have to wake them up getting them back indoors.

3)      Sing lullabies.

This could work if you can keep it up long enough.

4)      Leave them to cry.

This will work for some. Others will eat their cot before they will give in and go to sleep. More athletic babies may be able to climb right out of the cot unless you tie them down. (This is true, I had one of them).

5)      Put whiskey in their bottle.

NO. Do NOT do this. You will have your child taken into care, and tempting as this thought might seem when you are tired, you WILL regret it one day.

While we're on the subject….

Some toddlers have their own ideas about where they want to sleep. One of mine favoured the bath. And when he was banned from doing that, he put the baby bath onto his bed and slept in it.

 I like a child who knows their own mind.

Another one went to bed for a nap without me knowing. She was scrunched up small under the duvet in the dip in the mattress so we couldn't see she was there. Hours later and with the house searched from top to bottom, I was about to ring the police when she crawled out wondering why we were all so frantic.

Yet another toddler liked to sleep in the cupboard. I have no idea why.

All things pass, as they say. And the day does come when you are no longer wondering what it’s like to have an uninterrupted night’s sleep. Uninterrupted by children that is. There are plenty of things that will interrupt your sleep in later life. But that’s another story.

Moo

How did we all survive?

It was all SO last century….

I must have read all the books on baby care as a new mum. Some were ok. But for sheer entertainment you couldn’t beat the really old ones. And there have been some pretty whacky ideas out there at times.

I thought it would be fun to look back at some of the mainstream advice given back in the 1950s. I wasn’t a mother myself at the time, but I do have a handy book called The Care of Young Babies which first came out in 1940. I have the fifth edition here.

Fresh air seems to feature a lot in this book. Leaving the baby out in the sun is encouraged. Another idea is ‘air bathing’. (Yes, I know. I hadn’t heard of it either).

What you do is, you strip your baby down to its nappy, stick it in the pram, and leave it out in the fresh air to wave its healthy young legs around. Preferably outdoors in all weathers by the sound of it. But if the weather is very bad, indoors next to an open window.

And if not actually snowing, outside the open window.

This is me in my pram. 
Thank goodness my mum has left my clothes on.

Now, that’s what you call a pram!

All the advice seems hearty and no nonsense. Fresh air and exercise and all that.

Very bracing.


What a wholesome approach! Written, of course, by a man. A man who knows he is right and is going to tell mothers what to do.

But there is a chapter for the new father

This is Father with son. I’d be worried if that baby was mine. Just look at that guy’s face. What is he about to do with the poor kid? (I've edited this picture - I don’t want to get arrested. No such worries in those days it seems.)

And dads, you should be growing vegetables for your family. You don’t want to eat that rubbish you buy in shops.
Hang on, some of this advice sounds quite up to date.

They didn't pull any punches in those days.
 If your baby wasn't sitting up on its own by seven months, then ‘you may find that he is fat and gross, a great lubber of a boy...’

 No offence!

Spare a thought for the mums of the 50s. No disposable nappies for them. They were lucky if they had a washing machine.

This is what they had to do with nappies…..

“Wet napkins should be put in a covered pail of water, dirty napkins into another pail with disinfectant. The wetted ones should be washed, rinsed and hung up to dry. Dirty ones are shaken over the W.C., scrubbed under the tap with a hard brush and soap, left soaking for some time in cold water and washed out in a good lather with soap or soap flakes. Rinse them thoroughly in several changes of clean water, then dry them and let them air thoroughly. If you can, have a proper wash tub in the scullery and wash the napkins there. Leaning over a bath is back-breaking work…” -  You don't say!

But when it comes to discipline, you don't take any nonsense...

 ‘Many babies will stop crying at once if you say firmly: “Stop that horrible noise at once. I won't have it.”

Really?

Tell that to my mum.

This is me and my Mum.

She hadn’t read the books.        But then, she didn’t need to.

Well done Mum! Three well brought up babies to your credit.

Moo