Dear Father Christmas…

Dear Father Christmas
I’m sorry my letter is so late this year, but for some reason life has been a bit hectic in recent weeks.
The good news is that my wish list for Christmas is very straightforward.
The bad news is that as I’ve left it so late you might find some of the things on it may be out of stock. I fear there might be a few other parents who are after the same things…
Here goes.
Please may I have:
• A patience gene – with all the preparations for Christmas mine seems to have disappeared somewhere along the way, and I need a new one – fast
• A good night’s sleep – children feeling sick in the early hours, husband coughing all night, me lying awake worrying about how I am going to get everything done. All I ask for is one night when I get my much-needed seven or eight hours without any interruptions
• A spare sense of humour – for all those times mine fails me. Recently this has included the time I went on a Christmas shopping trip only to burst the front tyre of my car when accidentally mounting a kerb, managing to get all the children into bed early one night so I could wrap their presents – and then running out of sticky tape, and buying some beautiful twinkly lights, spending an age arranging them carefully on the tree, gathering the family together for the grand switch on…and not as much as a flicker. Nothing. Faulty lights.
• The ability to be in two places at once – there have been difficult decisions to make recently with the nursery nativity play and work on the same day, two separate school concerts organised for exactly the same time, and a mums’ Christmas do and husband’s office bash on the same evening.
• A couple more hours in the day – to sort out the Christmas credit card bill, work my way through the pile of ironing which is currently staring me in the face, and maybe, just maybe, having the time for a long, relaxing bath.
Oh, and one more tiny thing please.
• A plan – wrapped in tissue paper and put in a pretty box, with a beautiful bow on top, I would like a detailed plan on how to successfully manage this parenting thing until at least this time next year.
Thanks in advance for your generosity. Merry Christmas!
A very ordinary mum x

A big thank you to everyone who reads mumtwothreefour and who has given me so much encouragement and support – as well as sharing their own parenting experiences with me – this year. I hope you all have a very happy (and possibly even relaxing!) Christmas with your families.