One thing I have done though is take a picture on my iphone of something each day and I’ll be putting them up here tomorrow.

Mary Jean Iron: Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return

Apparently the snow isn’t thawing until Wednesday at the earliest. Our nursery is closed, my children are way too young to entertain themselves, both my husband and I have a backlog of work. The house is full of toys and noise and pent-up energy.

Stressed doesn’t even begin to describe it.

For the last few years, I have been rebellious. I buy some food from M&S, I scarf a small drink from our drinks collection, we watch a DVD we got from Christmas and go to bed by 11pm!

Start the year as you mean to go on, I say.

I like stockings, in fact I have rather a collection, but you just can’t get more than a satsuma, some chocolate coins and a paperback in them. The second coming of Scrooge, aka the aforementioned husband, would say that was the point. Next year I might give him just that. For this year though, I’ve picked out a range of little bits and pieces – blank DVDs, chocolates, books and calendars – and we each have a sack of small gifts to play with on Christmas morning. Will it stave off the ‘presents! presents! can I have my presents now!?’ from Toby? Who knows. Any excuse to buy a glittery beaker with a floating Buzz Lightyear in the bottom though.

Yes, I have a few things left to do:

move the tree in from the conservatory
wrap the remaining gifts
buy food for us to eat from today up until the 27th, excluding Christmas dinner (hello, Cook!)
tidy up all our bedrooms and the living room.
try to retain delicate grip on sanity

But today’s most important task is to go and see Toby in his first ever Christmas play! 3 year olds doing the nativity – A.DOR.A.BLE.

More than that, they do not have the shortest day falling mere days before the biggest celebration in the family calendar. They are not sliding about on the ice with 5 laden grocery bags full of sprouts and parsnips and other such “festive fare” (use of quotes deliberate). They can wrap all their presents in hours and hours of lovely daylight. Sat in the light of the twinkling tannenbaum is all very nice but does mean a New Year’s trip to Specsavers should one try to do anything as taxing as sign gift tags.

This is probably just grumbling on my part that, once again, we are a scant few days from Christmas and I categorically am not ready but here I am bemoaning the need for more hours in the day, upon the winter solstice. The irony is not lost on me.

by nicepaul, editing by me.

Late Thursday night, Mother Nature decided to dump about 8 inches of snow over Brighton. A snow day was declared, although the snow was found to be too fine and fluffy for good snowmen building, and it was a fun Friday. Right up til about 4pm when it became clear getting a taxi to the work Christmas party would be impossible.

And so a city car club car was hired and Mummy and Daddy left their angels with the babysitter and ventured out into the snow. It was somewhat hairy getting off our hill but once on the main roads it was okay and the party was fun, if a little quiet because a few invitees could not get through the snow. The parents returned early to relieve the babysitter and all was good.

The next day was Saturday. The snow was still thick on the ground, having melted only a little the previous day. In fact, just enough to create a nice crunchy crust of ice. Mummy and Daddy brought round the babysitter again, with another hire car, and set off to get festive food and drinks. The queues were, predictably, horrendous but they battled on through.

After they got back home again, Daddy used the big red buggy to transport the shopping home over the snowy pavements which were now more like sheet ice. The word forecasters use for this is ‘treacherous’. The word Mummy used when she nearly fell over would get this journalling a specific age rating and so has been left off the record. Then the car slide on the ice so Daddy had to leave it where it was (on a neighbour’s drive) and phone the car club to say he had been defeated by the elements, despite fighting valiantly with a kettle and some cardboard.

Sunday dawned and much of the snow had began to melt. On the grass it cracked underfoot. On the pavement it was more likely anything cracking underfoot would be a person’s bones. Mummy and Toby braved the outside for a visit to Santa and were not thwarted by the lack of buses, the fact buses appear to be mortally terrified of hills or the fact that Brighton and Hove City Council didn’t think gritting pavements was a worthwhile pursuit. Our trip down an icy and very steep Varndean Road will be forever filed under ‘never again’. Anyone who wishes for a white Christmas in a place singularly unequipped for snow is welcome to take over my shopping.

by McBeth

There is nothing big I ask for this year, just a simple list:

1) A lie-in for my and the husband together. Simply a day where both kids don’t wake before 8am would be *bliss*.

2) No arguments on Christmas day – my husband and small son not to be at loggerheads over what constitutes ‘enough’ dinner.

3) No poop and no sick to mop up. From anyone. It isn’t glamourous being a mummy, Santa.

4) For people to like the presents we have picked out for them.

5) A bar of dairy milk and a cup of tea.

Thanks, Santa. We’ll have some cookies out for you and an apple for the reindeer!

by summer.lovin'

The trouble with being at home for Christmas with just the four of us is that just two of us eat adult portions and another one of us isn’t really tackling anything with lumps yet while Mr. Finicky will no doubt request salmon or fishfingers or gingerbread.

This means that my Nigella Christmas hasn’t seen me crack the covers for more than a recipe for mulled cider. I think I’m going to bake and make a gingerbread house with Toby, and I have some mixed fruit currently awaiting its fate in the kitchen, but beyond that I think this afternoon’s trip to M&S is going to provide Christmas dinner this year.

Don’t get me wrong, I love to cook, but 4 hours in the kitchen for one meal for two of us? I’ll go with the pre-made this year, I think
And now, to go and make my list.

The best gift I have bought this year has to remain a secret though, as it for someone who sometimes reads this blog and enquiring minds always want to know …