A Time For Home
A Time for Home
In all the 24 years that we have spent together, Richard and I have only ever spent one Christmas together at home. Three years ago, I gave up the unequal struggle of trying to entertain my Mum for the festive holiday as her health had deteriorated, and we hunkered down in our home for the festive frolics.
Only for three days, and Christmas lunch was taken out at a restaurant so it was no great hardship. A time to enjoy a home we love at a special moment in the year.
Last year we were busy preparing for a once in a lifetime trip to Australia. Three weeks in Sydney, Melbourne and the Hunter Valley. We had the most amazing time. Such a holiday meant we saw nothing of our home last Christmas. No tree went up, no bundle of exciting packages lying under it. No overstocked fridge, and on the sunny beaches of St Kilda in Melbourne, no need for Christmas jumpers.
I think if when we were told to lockdown in March, we had known that we would still be under strict limitations at Christmas it would all have been too much to bear. I remember thinking that twelve weeks was an awfully long time to cope with, and yet here we are, nine months later, still subject to the bewildering whims of the philandering fool the country brought to power.
Christmas is hardly a time to be in tiers, in either spelling, yet it’s all we’ve got and if the Mother of the Messiah can cope with a stable (though I’ve always thought had she been more organised she could probably have got a flexible booking at a Premier Inn), I can relish the thought of our second Christmas chez nous.
The tree has been ordered, Amazon deliveries are daily affairs, and I’ve even pushed the boundaries of taste with some lights on the balcony railings. We are still missing the new sofa bed for the spare room. (That’ll teach us for supporting small businesses — avoid Willow and Hall of Kingston) So if any unexpected relatives do turn up, they’ll be in our equivalent of the stable in the garage block.
But we’ll be home. This year even going so far as to plan to cook at home too. We’ve seen a lot of our home this year, and it’s made us very aware of how lucky we are to live here. Space, a nice area, an outside haven on our balcony level with the tops of the trees, and of course, each other.
We’ve both worked from home for nine months now. We’ve acquired some office chairs, and workplace peripherals, so it’s fitting that for the holiday, Home becomes a home once more. Home is the place that has kept us safe. Home has provided a refuge, and it’s home that will see us through whatever remains of this whole escapade.
Home is in all our thoughts at this time of year. Something that many don’t have, and can’t take refuge in.
So perhaps this is the moment to think that if you are staying at home this Christmas, what are you saving, and with that saving, make a donation to Shelter or Crisis at Christmas.
After all, home is where the heart is.
[https://www.crisis.org.uk]. Crisis at Christmas.
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