Grace has smashed two Christmas tree ornaments already – the second time with a big grin on her face, rather pleased with the result from throwing her Teddy Bear into the Tree. When she was told to move away she refused – so she was herded out of the room. She then deliberately hit her brother on the head several times in retaliation, and was told to go to the naughty corner. She of course refused – and because of my back I was stuck waiting around for Allison to come and move her there. (Al never comes quickly, and usually arrives with an icy state at me for breaking whatever momentary peace there was.) In the end – furious, I dragged her into the naughty corner myself. Not good for my back. Grace then hit me, and ended up being told she had to go to her room.

Grace is pushing buttons at the moment – and now that she realises the Christmas Tree results in such an over the top reaction, it won’t surprise me if it becomes her go to item to aggravate, punish or seek revenge against her parents. We can’t ignore the behavior either – we have already been harping on her not to touch it, so we are stuck with that, the broken baubles leave sharp shards on the floor, and we have had some of them for more than 15 years and don’t want them broken.

In anger I threatened to pull the Christmas Tree down. In hindsight, if Grace ramps up her attacks on it that will probably be the result. In the meanwhile I need to calm down. The family has been highly strung the last week with the break in routine around my back. Plus - where as I am normally calmer in my discipline of the kids in comparison to Al, I am currently more stressed going into a situation with Grace knowing that I can’t actually move, lift or carry her.

I really disliked Christmas for much of my Adult life. For the last 4 or 5 years however Al and I made some changes in how we approached it, tried to make it more relaxed, less of a hassle, even been a little selfish in not travelling – and it has actually got some of that magic back. This year with Grace’s behaviour, my back and the disruption it caused in our preparations, and Al being more frazzled with everything going on, we are going to have to make even more of an effort to get the balance right and make it an enjoyable one for all four of us.

Just from writing this down I feel a little better. If Grace breaks another ornament, we won’t pull the tree down. We will just take all the ornaments off it.

Anyway – my back is now smarting from moving Grace and the extra tension, so I think I will go and lie down for a bit.

I was in the supermarket earlier today with a trolley. As I headed towards the checkout I noticed an open and free isle. Coming from the opposite direction was an elderly Indian couple, angling for the same checkout. I was markedly closer than they were – and had just thought “should I slow down and let them in?” when they literally sprinted forward, almost crashing into my trolley to get in first.

I laughed out loud at the absurd rudeness of it.

Meanwhile Allison took the kids to Church. An elderly man was waiting at the door for her, and stepped forward offering a small bag. He explained that his wife, who had passed away a few months before, had collected Teddy Bears and wanted to give one to Grace at Christmas. (Grace is the only one of her age who fairly consistently attends the church.) So the man had brought along a Bear from his wife's collection for Grace, and also had a book for Jack.

That was very touching - and in stark contrast to my supermarket experience.

Al and I started going out together 20 years ago today. We ate Pizza on our first official date (we were Uni students after all), so once the kids had gone to bed we ate a Pizza to celebrate. Al said she had tried to impress upon Jack how big a milestone that was, but he did not seem to comprehend its significance. I guess he has only lived 35% of two decades. We plan to go away for a night sometime early next year to mark the occasion, when things are not so hectic.

This time two weeks ago there was a high level of panic in the house over Christmas. I could barely walk with my back out, and we had the vast majority of our preparations still to do. We have been steadily working away at it over the last 8 odd days, and have made it to Christmas EVE all prepared (aside the last dozen odd presents to wrap tonight), and without having to push ourselves too hard. I picked up some cakes this morning, the last of the food, and some socks and jocks for my Xmas presents. We don’t normally go out on Christmas EVE, even early in the morning. There wasn’t much cheer on the face of the haggard shoppers as they rushed, pushed, bumped and growled their way around. It was quite an experience. Next year hopefully I will have a little more time to be able to sit down with a coffee, and just watch the spectacle unfold.

I am, once again, feeling relatively relaxed and happy about things. Hopefully tomorrow will be a good day for the family. Jack is pretty excited at the moment, and chatting incessantly. Grace has had the runs today and been very hard work. She is very excited about all things Christmas though, and I expect will be very excited to come downstairs tomorrow and see the presents under the tree.

Speaking of presents – there are none under the tree yet. While Grace has generally stayed away from the tree over the last week (aside tinkling the bells), we just couldn’t trust her with the presents.

Al was reflecting on our year tonight, as you do. While it was very busy, with many small achievements, there were two that particularly stood out. The first was that we could not have hoped for Jack’s first year of school to have gone so well, or been any happier with his school. The second was that we solidified and noticeably moved forward with our financial goals. These had stagnated the previous two years (as expected) with Al being off work with Grace’s birth, and from having two children in childcare. It was nice to feel we had jumped forward so much, and that our long held plans were falling into place as hoped.