Take a deep breath

I like the run-up to Epiphany far better than the days preceding Christmas. The presents are unwrapped, the hysterical BUYING is over. There's usually time to rest and relax, to read, to help the Lattes make pictures with tissue paper. Our tree stays up forever. Each year, I give thanks to the Magi for taking their time.

Not this year. This year it has been hard; a period of pain and tears and physiotherapy. (The tears have not all belonged to Eldest.)

It's not exactly the most reflective or inspirational environment in which to make New Year's Resolutions. But though we might be capable of changing our own destinies, we can't do a lot about the date.

Each year, we sit down in the Coffee House with a bit of fancy paper each and write our resolutions, which we keep in a little gift bag on the kitchen noticeboard. In 2010 we made little mini-books which, whilst beautiful, gave us rather too much space; we all felt obliged to come up with enough pledges to fill the things. Faced with the possibility of quite so much life-enhancing change, I began to make vague and sweeping statements which had no hope of being satisfactorily fulfilled.

By 2011 I thought I had it sussed - I was all about the SMART goal, with specifics. Do this once a week. Don't eat that.  But by far the most disheartening part of resolutions is opening up the bag on New Year's Eve and being confronted with the unhappy truth that the resolutions we make every year, however we word them, boil down to more or less the same thing: a thing which we still have not achieved. And if we rely on a magical date to get us going, it's probably never going to happen.

I was just feeling rather maudlin about this when I came across Littlest's resolutions from last year, which Mr Coffee had transcribed for her. These are resolutions I hope we can all try to keep this year.

My resolution for 2012? The clue's in the title. I don't know if I'll manage it  tomorrow; or even this week. Another week in hospital looms - for rehab this time. If you do ever think of us, think training montage. Let the soundtrack in your head be Eye of the Tiger.

It's like the Elves and the Shoemaker over here

I don't mind anyone reading my blog. I don't. But if you happen to share the same father as me, please look away now - at least for a couple of days.

Normally, I get annoyed in the face of endless pretty tutorials to make cute things for babies. It's easy to make small things look cute. I'd like to see the same kind of attention lavished on the older, poutier, youngster.

But since I've collected a couple of  very tiny new female relatives recently, it seemed a good idea to have a go at the couple of projects in December's Mollie Makes, bought for me by a friend while I was in hospital with Eldest. Some little boots - which will probably end up ripped off and lobbed from the pram, if they even fit on the feet to start with (in my humble experience).

I cut down on the ridiculous amount of embroidery suggested for the boots. Less is more, especially with my humble skillz.

Also a couple of teddy bears from the same issue. I hope their faces do not alarm the girls; especially since Eldest's visiting friend took one look at them and pronounced them to be 'weird'.

The last of the Christmas making - a Kindle cover for my mother from this tutorial - was finished last night. Nothing to make now but merry.

Letter from Santa to the Coffee House

Santa Claus International

North Pole

Dear Coffee Lady

I acknowledge receipt of your child's letter dated December 12. Though Santa Claus International makes every attempt to fulfil its 500-year-old gift remit, there may be occasions when we have to manage the expectations of our clients to avoid any disappointment. Some of the items on your child's list have given us some cause for concern and for this reason the presents delivered may vary from those ordered.

• 'Perles and perle cases'
  We are unable to fulfil this request, due to the child in question being six years old. This is not a time for pearls.
• 'Magic flying fairy dust'. We have had quite a few requests for this in recent times, probably prompted by the misrepresentation of its use in the film Tinkerbell Fairy Rescue. We would like to categorically state that magic fairy dust is unavailable to humans. You will no doubt be aware of the need for magical creatures to hold onto their Unique Selling Point in an increasingly competitive economic climate; in addition to this there are insurmountable Health and Safety implications in

  

  © Disney Enterprises

  children being allowed to float around at cloud level. We are currently involved in a legal battle with the Disney Fairies on this very issue. (Between me and you, the Disney Fairies are the worst kind of magical creature. A couple of our elves have had the misfortune of becoming involved with them, and their fairy ethics have a lot to be desired. They give it up for anyone; I'm not just talking about fairy dust.)
• 'Magic hair clips'. It is unclear exactly what magic your child expects these clips to perform.
• 'Spell book'. The elves have searched our catalogue but have only been able to come up with this. Having studied your family*, I can find no evidence that you plan to educate your six-year-old child into Wiccan philosophy. Would this book suffice?
• 'Remote control flying fairy'. Based on the information in our database, I am taking the liberty of substituting a doll based on the Rapunzel-based film, Tangled, which I am sure will delight your child. (Be aware that the doll has 'poseable arms', which give the impression of having suffered a bad fall.)

It has come to my attention that this year you have decided to entrust some of your Christmas wishes to a different supplier, who has given your delivery date as 'on or before December 24'. Santa Claus International is disappointed in your choice and would appreciate any feedback about its service. Though your chosen supplier does offer the possibility of a slightly earlier delivery date, I would warn that such companies are subject to the vagaries of the postal system whereas in its many years of operation, Santa Claus International has never missed the December 24 deadline.

I hope that you are confident in your chosen supplier's ability to deliver on time and that you can sleep at night confident that your children's presents will not still be in a warehouse on Christmas Day.

I hope that you can continue to trust Santa Claus International and we look forward to enjoying our sherry and mince pie in the pitch dark in your living room in a few days time.

Yours sincerely

Santa Claus International

*Please be reminded that Santa Claus International's surveillance of households is entirely confidential, compliant with the Data Protection Act and solely for the purpose of ascertaining whether our clients have been bad or good.

A cheery tale of murder for your Advent

Eldest wanted to make a Christmas decoration; I already had my eye on Monica's pin of a felt mistletoe ball.

But with the child off school and both of us overdosing on television, it seemed lax to just make a ball and leave it at that. Surely we should be learning something about mistletoe, and why we kiss under it at Christmas? A quick Google later, and we were up to our ears in Norse myths. And there's nothing I like more than a good myth.

So. Balder - son of Odin and Frigg - is loved by everyone. The god of light and beauty, his face glows; he is handsome, gentle and wise. But he's troubled by dreams of his death - so Odin sets out on his eight-legged horse (as you do) and meets with a seeress. The news is not good - there is no avoiding Balder's fate.

Balder. What's not to like?

So Frigg stomps off (there is no evidence in the books we have looked in to suggest she's a heavy-footed woman, but we went so far as to assume a degree of Purposeful Striding) and asks every harmful thing - fire, rocks, plants, birds, diseases, etc - to promise not to hurt Balder in the hope that the nightmares won't come true. The only plant she doesn't bother asking is the mistletoe. What harm can the mistletoe do?

And now Balder is fantastic fun for everyone. The gods come up with an hilarious new game of chucking stuff at him and watching it bounce off, because they know he can't be harmed.

Loki - a bit of an unstable character - finds out about the mistletoe. He makes an arrow out of it and seeks out Balder's blind brother, Hod, to see if he wants to join in the game of Throw Stuff at The Invincible God. Loki guides Hod's arm, and Balder dies. A last, desperate attempt to bring Balder back from death fails because the condition given - that every living thing weeps for him - is not fulfilled because of Loki, now pretending to be a giantess living in a forest and refusing to cry a single tear. (I found suggestions on the internet that Frigga wept big fat tears which turned into the white berries of the mistletoe and thus brought Balder back, but the books say Nordic texts make no mention of a resurrection. Faced with a choice between trusting the web and the printed word, I will always come down on the side of the books.)

It doesn't end well for Loki, who ends up tied to some rocks in a cave with a snake dripping venom on his head. Balder's death, meanwhile, means the coming of the end of the world,when the Earth will sink into the sea and men will kill their own fathers and brothers. (You're probably feeling a bit resentful now. You did, after all, join us for a blog post about felt decorations and kissing.)

You may also be complaining to yourself that none of this stuff goes any way towards answering the question of why we kiss under the mistletoe at Christmas. I seem to remember there was something about Pagans and Druids, but the thing is, we were far too interested in the Norse myths to get distracted by the small matter of the reason we were looking at them in the first place. Look, you're all pretty internet-savvy. You know where Google is.

Also, we made a felt ball.

Things I learned in hospital

1. Peter Andre publishes his own Christmas magazine, which is so popular (or unpopular; I don't know how these things work) as to be displayed in a special pop-out display stand in the WHSmiths in Alder Hey Hospital. (I admit to having a touch of the Jens (she maintains a soft spot for the unlikely Charlie Sheen) for Peter Andre, despite how ridiculous he continues to be. In that, you know, I hope he's eating well, and that his business ideas do not all go belly up. Still, it did not move me to buy his Christmas magazine.)
   
   
2. When you spend two weeks sleeping on a Wiskaway, three things are very helpful.
• An eye mask.
• An MP3 player with relaxing stuff on it, to block out the sounds of the ward. I listened to the opening of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle roughly 49 times (based on going back to bed three/ four times each night for 14 nights) and still can't tell you what happened beyond the first five minutes with the hat.
• Your own blanket and pillow. There's something very special in a sterile environment about having your own textiles, even if they were bought from Matalan and would never be featured on a style blog.
  
  
3. Before going into hospital, it is important to make the right sort of friends. This process can start - both online and in real life - up to 11 years before the actual event. The kind of people you are looking for include:
• Friends who will source magazines from home which do not involve Peter Andre.
• Ones who will wittily answer idiotic texts about nothing at 10pm at night. These friends make up for the fact that the only adult conversation you have had all day was a discussion about bed pan positioning.
• Friends who will sneak miniature bottles of booze into the hospital under the guise of 'gifts for the patient'.
• Ones who send parcels of home-sewn goodies so thoughtful and immediately relevant that you could swear they can see your every move on some kind of karmic CCTV.
• People who send emails, blog comments, cards and texts expressing their love and care. Most of them have been left unanswered in the chaos and stress of the last few weeks. If you are one of these people, please know that every single one has been appreciated, and has made us feel incredibly supported and loved.
  
  
4. It is possible to learn to love salad, especially if that is the only thing that you have bought to eat.
   

Just to add:  Eldest is doing well, and pressing on with her physio despite the pain she is in. She is a little star.