Holy Moly I’m excited. My fingers are kinda trembly, and I feel like I could just BURST because I am so excited. And do you know why I am excited? No, you sigh, and please don’t make me guess. Well, because it was our first Christmas as a family with our sweet baby! Raaaaaarrrrr! Hooray!

Ahhhhhhh, Christmas. What a peach of a day.

The beautiful smell of fresh pine (or stale plastic if you have a fake tree like mine) wafting throughout your home. The piles of gifts resting under the tree, and the thrill of not knowing what’s in them (well, except for me, because I annoyingly have to buy them all). The knowledge that the family will all come together over the one special day, or numerous special days to share happiness, gifts, love and laughter with one another (or to renew previous arguments from last Christmas that will be guaranteed to drive you all up the wall, and be completely drunk before lunch even hits the table).

Yes, Christmas is a most excellent time of year.

Now unfortunately for me, I have an over-inflated sense of expectation and disappointingly reality never quite meets those expectations.

I expect everyone to be bursting with the same level of excitement that I do, because ITS FRUITIN’ TOOTIN’ CHRISTMAS PEOPLE! I even expect to see Christmas cheer oozing out of the pore’s of every stranger I pass in the street. And yet, with the exception of my sister and the sixteen year old checkout girl at our local supermarket, most people go through the motions of Christmas with a such a frustrating level of dullness that I feel the need to double check the fact that the poor holiday is even coming.

And when I don’t see those around me getting into the Christmas spirit the way that I think they should, then my fussy brain automatically sends me into a wild and intense downward spiral fuelled by both grumpiness and absurd annoyance.

And this is why I have been so excited in the lead-up to Ari’s first Christmas.

Because I know that soon I will have someone who will share the over-excited, stupendously happy Christmas anticipation that I wander around feeling every year. I will have someone with which to share that bone tingling joy that the holiday should bring, and who will be just as excited, if not MORE excited that Santa is on his way.

And you know, I feel as though that with just a little love and a sprinkle of care, that I could cultivate him into becoming a Christmas elf down the track. Or possibly even Santa himself someday.

God, Christmas is going to be great with this kid around! I can feel it!!

And then Christmas day finally arrived.

Even though I know that he is far too young to know what is going on, I woke up still expecting to see or at least FEEL something different.

I expected to see an extra knowing sparkle in my baby’s eye. A more joyful squeal as he crawled past the tree perhaps? Or maybe his first words would be uttered, to the affect of “Holy Christmas, Did I Just See Santa Pick Up Reindeer Poop” (or something similar)? Or that he would even possibly expel a poop himself that smelt just like homemade plum pudding with equally homemade brandy cream? You know, a little something special for Christmas!

However…nothing extra really happened.

And apart from both of our families coming over to share a Christmas lunch, it kinda felt like… well, just another day.

I mean, the little one opened his presents that we had quite frankly, been hoarding in the cupboard since last years Mattel Toy Sale. Missed my post about the last hilarious Toy Sale? Read about it here. But he wasn’t really in the mood.

For him, there were specs of DUST in the room that had more pulling power than his new Lego. And dribbling, licking or slapping various household objects seemed to be the activity of choice for the morning, rather than revelling in the glory of Christmas. Hmmm… I might have to work on him a bit for next year.

Then both of our families arrived ready to spread some cheer, open gifts, and imbibe bucket loads of alcohol. Oh no, wait, the last bit was totally just about me.

We swapped presents with joy, and then after putting our baby to bed, sat down to a delicious meal that everyone had contributed to in order to make our first Christmas Day Lunch hosting relatively stress free.

It was brilliant. We cracked open our bonbons, donned our Christmas paper hats, groaned at the horrific jokes inside and drank more booze than is allowed on any other day of the year.

I couldn’t help but grin and feel overwhelmed by love.

And yet, then I started to clean up the beautiful lunch tables, and in doing so I managed to sober up a little.

And to my Christmas-loving horror, what did I see but six unopened Chrismas bonbons lying on the table. SIX! YES, SIX UNOPENED BONBONS!

I started to see red. I could feel smoke coming out of my ears and as such I slightly hysterically questioned my husband on his own lack of bonbon participation to which he calmly walked to the table, opened one of the bonbons on his own before quietly reading me the joke inside, putting on his paper hat and walking back out into the lounge again. Because that is the kind of awesome husband he is.

But what I really want to know is, how could people NOT WANT TO PUT ON PAPER HATS THAT BARELY FIT? How could people not be squeezing so much Christmas joy out of their bodies that they need to change their clothes after lunch? How could Christmas not drive people to the same levels of joyful insanity that it seems to drive me to?

Or is it just that I am the only crazy one?

Hmmm. I might need to mull on that every day for the next twelve months until its Christmas again.

 

 

Do you also have an over-inflated sense of expectation on special occasions? Tell me about it below as I would love to hear about it!!!! xxxx

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