The Perfect Christmas Day Timeline

5.05am – Get woken up by exuberant excitable children. Unfortunately it is not possible to adopt the usual technique of putting cartoons on and ignoring whilst muttering ‘FML FML FML’ because goddam Christmas guilt suggests you be a willing participant in stocking opening. Try and resist puking into own mouth due to the tired.

don't hurt us

6.15am – Stuff face with handfuls of Quality Street for energy.
6.30am – Caffeination – I don’t know if it’s a word but it should be.
7am onwards – Continue stuffing face with Quality Street and downing coffee until someone (not me, because the Daily Mail readers already think I am an offensive alcoholic) suggests it would be a good idea to crack open the Bucks Fizz.

bucks fizz 3

10am – Family arrive and assemble for official present opening. Brace self, cross fingers and come armed with screwdriver and batteries.present2

10.30am – Hunt for survivors in the wreckage.

wrapping

11am -1pm – Lunch prep. I am the sous chef in our house and I take that role VERY seriously.sous2

1pm – Some people go to the pub for a pint. Try and be in that group. The sous chef in particular could do with a break.
2pm – Lunch is ready!
2.02pm – Everyone sits down to enjoy a large, leisurely feast.
2.04pm – The children have finished eating.

dinner

2.06pm – The children are fighting.

fight

2.46pm – The children are STILL fighting.

fighting 3

3pm – Right that’s it. They say Christmas is for kids but they’ve had their fun, it was magical and all but the magic is now looking a bit thin on the ground. Come to think of it the magic has well and truly flown out of the fucking window.

magic3

[For clarification that strange purple ghost is meant to represent the magical spirit of Christmas, I thought it was obvious but my husband advised otherwise and said it was weird]

3.30pm – Chuck gold coins at the small people and insist they keep at least one metre away from all adult humans.
4pm – Suggest cocktails, make each round with decreasing skill and increasing alcohol.

cocktail2

5pm – Your age level has now been reduced to that of a 5 year old. Adults are boring. Hang out with the kids again.

bum

7pm – Pack small people off to bed and watch depressing soaps. Get out a board game to lighten the mood! Make promise to self not to get all ridiculously competitive about inconsequential things. Fail.

game

8pm onwards – Put the world to rights, do some angry washing up, argue about politics, eat oven snacks, point out other people’s character flaws and wander around carrying a pyramid of Fererro Rochers whilst encouraging guests to role play The Ambassadors Reception (Note: if they refuse they should not be invited into your home again).

rocher

11.37pm – Fall asleep in front of the TV with a breaded mozzarella stick stuck to your face and your hand submerged in a tub of Quality Street. You is beautiful. You is amazing. You is the winner of Christmas!

sleep

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P.S. I have a new book OUT NOW! You can nab it on Amazon here or in your lovely local bookshop :)

instapost

31 thoughts on “The Perfect Christmas Day Timeline

  1. Hannah @ themumandthemom

    Haha! My Canadian husband doesn’t get the ambassadors reception reference but I still insist he participates in the Monsieur role play every time we eat a Ferrero rocher (frequent). Thank you for another horrifyingly accurate representation of our household xx

    Reply
  2. Emma

    Hmm, my three year old is also ‘practising’ by getting up at 5am for two out of the last three days. Oh crap. I also tried to blackmail her into eating some dinner (i.e. any food at all) by threatening to email Father Christmas if she didn’t comply. Did that work – bollocks did it. So I’m on my third beer. Cheers

    Reply
  3. Amy

    Pretty sure I’d take a bow and call it in everyday, like, forever if Daily Mail readers dubbed me an “offensive alcoholic.” I mean, like, I’d have arrived, for sure.

    Reply
  4. Fiona

    You forgot…. Loose all key parts of toys in wrapping paper that gets thrown out, spend second half of day pacifying screaming off spring by standing in the rain going through sodding bins

    Lay out Christmas buffet only to discover small child size bites in virtually everything

    Older pre teen sneaks around finishing everyone’s wine then feels desperately sick

    Family arguement because everyone’s bloody tired, feels sick, worked out they have consumed a years worth of chocolate in one morning and inevitably drunk too much!

    From a mum of 11 kids!

    Reply
  5. Julia

    For years my parents had a “hospice bag” on Christmas morning. This was for gifts we wanted to ‘forward’ to the local charity shop that raised funds for a hospice. I.e. the gifts that we deemed ‘crap’.

    When I had my children I wanted to carry on this family tradition. Unfortunately I’d misheard the name of the bag and therefore the whole concept of ‘the bag’ it wasn’t until my eldest’s third xmas did my husband challenge me on having a “horse piss bag”. I miss it.

    Reply
    1. Moira

      We had a similar thing to the horse piss bag – ours was the open coal fire which was always lit on Christmas Day, if only to dispose of nasty, unwanted presents (and there were many in our opinion)!!! Some wooly knitted hats from aunties were always the first to be fed to the flames. It was my 2 brothers’ fault, they made me do it!

      Reply
  6. Jonathan

    I thought calling each other a “bum face” might actually be unique to my family, but I am so glad others deem it a worthy comical insult. It forms the centre of 90% of jokes in our house

    Reply
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  8. Helen

    Yes – this is Christmas in our house! Even down to the Ferrero Rocher – it’s compulsory to do the ambassador’s reception. Oh, and who cares what Dail Mail readers think? Merry Christmas and thank you!

    Reply
  9. Jen

    I dunno, I think you’re having dinner very early. I mean, sure, that’s the intended timetable, but doesn’t it take about 6 hours to cook a chicken? (Not turkey, why have turkey when you can have chicken.)

    Otherwise, brilliant. Laughed out loud. Again.

    Reply
  10. Mrs_moons

    The good news is that after 20 years of this, you are genetically hardwired to wake up at 5am while your ‘children’ ‘ hungoverly snore til 2pm. Meanwhile you get to drink ALL the bucks fizz and pretend there is a toddler in the house so you can watch The Snowman on repeat while sobbing. Then, because you no longer have terrifying small children, you get invited round to other people’s homes for Xmas dinner. And can go to the pub!

    Reply
  11. Jayne

    I love it, thought it was just me who told the kids to say random stuff like ‘your cheese smells’ to daddy when’s talking too much about shite because he’s had seventy whiskeys

    Reply
  12. Lizzy

    I don’t even have children but I love reading your blog. Hilarious! You’re making me slightly weary about whether I actually should have any children at all… it sounds hard. But having added excuses to hit the gin always a bonus. I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas. x

    Reply
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  14. Ruth

    Our Christmas was quite similar to this, except massively improved by the fact that my Dad gave us your book :)

    Technically, he gave it to my husband, but marriage is about sharing, right? Anyway I pinched it almost immediately and it made me feel heaps better about feeding the small baby expressed milk from a bottle so I could have too much to drink and excitedly play with Brio with the toddler.

    You are ace and so is your book.

    Reply
  15. Lisa

    Still funny even in February! Love love Love HfG – but I think you secretly actually write *my* life most if the time ;)

    Reply
  16. Jo Arrowsmith

    When I tell people what having kids is really like, they think I am some evil bitch from hell ….. Thankfully when I read your blog, I know that I am in the real world. And yes, the kids are full up after 2 minutes. This year I am not even going to bother to cook for them. All they want to eat is porridge, noodles, crisps, apples and the Yorkshire puddings! They can help themselves …. Ha ha ha …

    Reply

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