Snow is falling …

5th December 2020

We’ve hit December and if we were in any doubt that winter was here we’ve had our first flurry of snow and there’s been a significant drop in temperatures. I don’t mind that. I much prefer those meteorological conditions to it being just wet and windy – no comments please!

Maybe the change in the weather will allow us to think much more enthusiastically about the holiday on the horizon. I don’t know whether you’ve noticed this but it seems to me that this year people have their decorations and their trees up much earlier than usual. I am a man who needs structure and routine at home and, as every other year, the Christmas tree goes up the first full weekend of December – this weekend. There is usually a 10 K race to follow that on the Sunday (The Percy Pud – for those who know it) but that’s not taking place this year. We’ll just be decorating a tree, and that’s about the limit of the decorations in our house. Hopefully that doesn’t sound too Scrooge or bah humbug, I just like to think that I am a person of style – again no comments please!

Going back to the thought that people seem to have been putting up their decorations much earlier this year; I understand that. I am guessing that people are trying to engender or imbue a seasonal spirit. With so little else to warm the winter days, especially during lockdown and now tier 3 (lockdown by a different name), people, understandably, are finding ways to bring some Christmas spirit into their lives. Despite the personal unwillingness to over decorate my house I do understand and sympathise with those people who want to push the boat out this year. To a degree there is an element of controlling what you can control and doing what you can do to lift your spirits. It looks like we will have a full month of Christmas shenanigans this year rather than the mad weekend towards the end of December, when the whole population seemed to tumble out onto the streets. Maybe there will be some good to come out of this lockdown period

‘Just back. Turns out the Christmas decorations weren’t in the Arctic.’

‘One of my earliest memories is the day my grandfather cut the hedge
on Christmas morning, and then we all sat down to a nice big lunch with all
the trimmings. Yum yum.’

‘Then there was the year I learned to never be afraid to ask for a
present you don’t expect to get. For Christmas 1979 I asked my dad for
Russia to invade Afghanistan. I still don’t quite know how he managed to
arrange it.’

‘But nothing will compare to my cruel uncle – who knew we lived in
bungalow – who every year would give us a Slinky.’

                                                                                                         Milton Jones

Whether you’re putting up your tree or taking out your ‘Now that’s what I call Christmas’ CD (Yes at Sitwell Junior School they still have a small CD player with CD playing Christmas songs in their reception – digital music seems to have passed them by) I wish you all the best and hope that you can have an uplifting and ‘treemendous’ weekend.