I’m making an official Christmas crime complaint.
Officer, someone stole the first half of December.
It seems like only yesterday that it was November and I had plans. A schedule. A strategy.
I was going to be supremely organised for the festivities, one of those irritants with flashing snowman earrings who opens her advent calendar every day and takes out another little parcel of smugness.
Oh yes, I was aiming for full-scale premature elfjaculation.
Then I woke up and it was just over a week until Christmas and I’m as prepared as Rudolph begging for a nasal decongestant at the late-night chemist on the 24th of December.
Worse, I’m in this sorry state despite studying one of those magazine guides that promises to turn a failed yuletide domestic goddess into a cross between Mary Berry, Nigella Lawson, Kirstie Allsopp and the ferocious one out of Kim & Aggie.
It looked so easy.
Week one – put up the decorations, and send handwritten cards, taking care to include a personal, heartfelt yet catchy line of affectionate greeting.
Week two – wrap carefully chosen presents in paper that matches the colour scheme of the beautifully adorned tree.
Week three – whip the house into spectacular shape, cleaning all the places that are ignored for most of the year. Yes, you, skirting boards. Be afraid, cupboard under the sink.
Then, while humming along to the Michael Buble Christmas album, place orders for the ingredients required to prepare a culinary masterpiece.
In between all that, I intended to uphold my very own annual Christmas tradition. This consists of acknowledging that, once again, I haven’t lost the five stones required to get into a sexy Mrs Claus outfit, and thus calling on the entire family to give me a punty into the loft for my trusty old Santa suit. No padding required. Sob.
Sadly, I’ve achieved none of the above.
I fully expect to be sacked from the Parents’ Advent, Nativity, Tinsel & Santa League. Or Crimbo PANTS League for short.
In my defence, I have a big ole sack of excuses. I got caught up on a work project that required endless late-night hours at the keyboard.
Husband has done nothing because he’s under the impression that a Christmas fairy arrives every year, waves a wand and everything from the cranberry sauce to the mandatory Jenga magically appears.
Low the Elder, our devoted basketball player, broke a bone in his foot, necessitating countless trips to physios, orthopaedic consultants, sports injury clinics and specialist podiatrists. Please note that I embarked on this intensive regime of consultation and treatment despite the fact that I’m fairly sure I qualify as a medical expert after watching every episode of ER and being the family champion at Operation fourteen years in a row.
Meanwhile, Low the Younger and his saxophone were practising for his school show. It’s difficult to concentrate on choosing the perfect yule log when there’s a perpetual background soundtrack of ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’. On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me – tinnitus.
I’ve got one week to pull it back, get back on the tinsel track while accepting that the Low clan’s nativity scene will look very different to the conventional one.
The father and his roasting chestnuts will be oblivious in front of the telly, the three wise men will be pondering a shepherd’s cracked metatarsal bone, and the bright star will still be playing ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ on the saxophone.
And the mother of the family?
Just follow the sounds of the Michael Buble Christmas album to the red-trousered legs sticking out from the cupboard under the sink.
Woe, ho, ho.