A Different Kind of Christmas

Christmas 2017 was always going to be a different kind of Christmas for us.

At almost 9 months pregnant, and with my planned c-section booked for just four days after Christmas day, I was feeling… well, let’s just go with, “slightly less than festive” shall we?

Actually, I was feeling huge, uncomfortable, and – oh yeah – TERRIFIED. Nothing like the sheer terror of knowing that in a few days you’ll be walking into hospital in order to be sliced open, to take some of the shine off Christmas day, is there? This probably falls into the category of “Things I Shouldn’t Admit on the Internet”, but I literally spent the entire day on the verge of tears, thinking it would probably be my last ever Christmas (Context: crippling health anxiety/tokophobia) – so THAT was fun, obviously. I was also very aware of the possibility that I could go into labour at any second, and have to rush off to hospital to die, so… yeah: this year was always going to be different.

It was, for instance, the first year in my life that I haven’t woken up in my parents house on Christmas morning, and it was also the first time in the course of our relationship that Terry and I didn’t spend the whole day together. Instead, we visited both families together in the morning, before going our separate ways in the afternoon, with Terry having Christmas dinner with his mum and siblings, while I headed back to my parents’ place for the rest of the day. It probably sounds a bit odd, but it meant that we both got to see everyone, and I got to have a bit of a rest in the middle of the day, so hey – it worked for us!

Enough about me, though: I mean, let’s face it – you’re all just here for the photos of my mum’s Christmas table, aren’t you? Well, here they are, with apologies for the quality of the photos: Terry had custody of our “real” camera for the day, so these were taken on my iPhone, in the usual December gloom:

My mum would like it to be known here that this table setting was a last minute affair: she normally picks up bits and pieces for Christmas throughout the year, but this year she’s been slightly distracted by the imminent arrival of her first grandchild, not to mention her ongoing mission to buy up all the muslin squares in all the land, so she, and I quote, “Just couldn’t be bothered, really.”

So, she went for a simple candy-cane and holly theme, and given that my mum’s idea of “just throwing something together at the last minute,” is still approximately 100x better than what I’d manage even if I DID have all year to spend on it, I think she did pretty well, don’t you? Round of applause for my mum, please…

(And also for my dad: unfortunately I did manage to keep one Christmas tradition alive this year, and it was the one where I totally forget to photograph any of the food other than the sorbet, thus making it look like we just spend Christmas sitting around a beautiful table, without actually eating anything. We don’t, needless to say – Christmas dinner was a joint effort from my parents, and it was just too tasty for me to stop and take photos of it: WHOOPS.)

Oh, and I didn’t bother to photograph my Christmas outfit either, because I’m not really sure you can call the only dress that still fits me an “outfit”, really, can you? I spent all of Christmas Eve diligently dodging cameras, so here’s the one and only photo of me from Christmas 2017:

Yeah, standards are really slipping around these parts, aren’t they?

(Also, I said it when I posted this on Insta stories, but I’ll just say it again, for fear of judgement: NOT MY WINE GLASS. The champagne bottle, on the other hand, WAS partly mine, but it was the alcohol-free variety: roll on New Year, huh?)

Aaand that was our Christmas! And now it’s Wednesday, and, oh, hey, did I mention I’m having a baby in two days time? Because, guys, I AM HAVING A BABY IN TWO DAYS TIME, and I could not possibly be more excited OR more terrified. I mean, I can barely even speak at this point, that’s how terrified/excited I am. I can also barely work out how to wind up this post: I’m kind of painfully aware that if I die in childbirth (And I’m 100% sure that’s what’s going to happen), then this will be the last thing I ever publish here… and it’ll be a half-assed blog post, filled with blurry iPhone photos, including one of me looking like I’ve stuffed a beach ball up my dress as a joke.

On second thoughts, that’s actually quite an appropriate memorial, isn’t it?

Wish me luck, folks…