What Christmas means for working mothers

I'm finally getting into the Christmas spirit. The tree is up. My little girl has broken up from nursery (sounds terrifyingly grown up!). The stress is starting and the bank account is fucked to put it bluntly. And I've yet to sort a pub for our 'stress and cooking free' Christmas dinner. Once again it's money and pressure that has prompted me to post this. Although I'm excited about time off and my family being together, I'm terrified at the prospect of not earning for a few days - it always seems to leave a huge dent in the monthly pay cheque. I yearn for the days when you took 5 days paid holiday and got 2 weeks out of the office - care and stress free. One of my companies is being very generous in doing a special festive Christmas payment run so that we get paid before the 25th. I'm hugely grateful to them for it. It's a shame the other firms I work for didn't want to jump on the joyous bandwagon, but I can understand why. I feel the pressure to earn and keep earning is constantly on my back. If I don't, I always fall short the next month - I get stung for bank charges and find myself in the same situation only worse and more peeved the next month. January is a notoriously long and hard and desperate month... I'm just hoping that I've done, and I'm doing enough to ensure that we'll get through Christmas and have a decent cheque in 2009. Sorry to sound so negative but it's reality... I can see why some people dread Christmas. It is in some ways such a happy and giving time; and in others a worry and a necessary evil. I should look at the true meaning of Christmas and be thankful, and I am, I really am. But in modern times it's hard to see it as something other than a money guzzling nightmare.

All I want for Christmas....

Boo hiss. This credit crunch lark is really starting to bite. I don't think I would have noticed it if I was still a working girl in London (not that kind of working girl!)... gloriously single, selfish, affluent, well groomed, didn't know the meaning of the word tired... but now with kids, a husband and extended family to think about buying presents for, you really start to notice the pinch. Not to mention mortgages, credit cards - and bank charges. My fucking bank took £300 in charges last month... it left me skint, crying, depressed, anxious and seriously pissed off for weeks - I still haven't got over it in case you are wondering. When you work all the precious hours you can muster, in and around being a full time mother of a toddler, and being a full time housewife, and then half of what you earned goes up in smoke, into some Lloyds effing Bank fat cat's bonus pocket, it really grates. That money was set aside to pay for an old loan payment and also finish off my Christmas shopping... Which is now still waiting, sat on a wish list on amazon.co.uk. This month isn't much better, although one good thing is our mortgage which thankfully has come down considerably. But no matter how much money you make or save, you hardly notice it - you just notice that it always goes straight back out of your bank account. Who actually manages to save any money at the moment?

So it's got me thinking about what is important this Christmas. And actually it's not the presents, although I want to treat my daughter to a few Peppa Pig bits and pieces. It's about my family, my immediate family being together. It's about good will, fun, sharing and caring. It's about watching The Snowman and the Christmas Eastenders. And then it's about looking to 2009, how I can improve our situation financially. I think I will apply for more work and really knuckle down and get more coming in. That will be my New Years resolution... So it's all about positivity, checking reality and hoping that things will get better. But for now everything is fine. Gone are the gluttonous Christmases of late, which is no bad thing.

'Tis The Season To Be Jolly... fa la lalalaaaaaaaAAAAA!!

AAAHHHGGGGHHHH!!! Sometimes I just HATE Christmas, don't you? I am usually such a positive person and am pretty happy most of the time but Christmas really stresses me out. It's not the present buying, the cooking, the decorations, the noise or the same old Christmas tunes belting out of the radio... it's the F word. Shhh... families. Did you hear that? Sometimes I just can't be doing with them. It's even worse now I'm married and have a child. It's not that my parents want to see my or my husband, but they want to see our little girl; they live two counties away so it always has to be an overnighter when we see them.. this fills my husband with dread - he's antisocial at the best of times, and to make matters worse - he and my parents don't see eye to eye, never have, never will... My husbands idea of Christmas is slippers on, remote in hand, Quality Streets at the ready. My parents like us all to join in - silver service, champagne, let's get pissed and play charades. Chalk and very smelly stilton cheese...

My in-laws (who I get on with very well) are always at home and always have their other children and granchildren over for Christmas lunch. This is all well and good except that the grandchildren run the show. Call me old fashioned but I expect to be able to sit down for Christmas dinner and stay at the table throughout (bar trips to the lavatory or to top up drinks etc). I don't expect kids to be zooming around on scooters, not sharing things - screaming MINE! every 5 minutes and basically not allowing any grown up conversation to exist while they are conscious. Maybe Christmas dinner in the evening would resolve this, but my mother in law insists on lunch time. And surprisingly she is more than happy to let the kids run riot, behave like monsters and drive everyone potty. My husband and I can't cope with the level of noise, level of bad behaviour, the stress that it causes as the parents of the badly behaved kids get frowned on and in turn get the hump and behave badly. Phew.

Roll on the 25th - we're off to the pub!