Rosie's are red: December 2018

Well, here we are, just four days away from Christmas. I'd like to be able to say I'm all ready for the big day but, as usual, the festivities have rushed up to bite me on the bum. It's not as if we have a horde descending on us; there will just be Harry, me and my mum at Christmas dinner. The turkey and mince pies are in the freezer and the puddings have been maturing in the larder for weeks. All I need to make now is the brandy butter and cranberry sauce. I've cooked Christmas dinner in thirty-eight of the last forty years, so I have no worries about the meal itself.

The thing that gets me stressed is buying the presents. Give or take a few new friends and family members, we've being buying for the same group of people for many years and I am right out of ideas. What once was a pleasure has become a burdensome chore. Some of our family and friends feel the same way and have agreed only to send cards. Those who are aghast at that idea are, coincidentally, the hardest to buy for! I still have a couple of gifts to buy. I've left them to last, hoping inspiration will strike but, if not, one friend will get yet another fancy candle and the other a bottle of his favourite tipple.

I've had two "settle down" spankings this week but by tomorrow I hope to have done everything I need to do, except put up the decorations and dress the tree Harry bought earlier in the week. We'll do that together tomorrow evening and, hopefully, by then I'll be as serene as the glass angels that adorn the mantelpiece.

Despite our best intentions though, things can get fraught at this time of year, so here's a throwback from Christmas 2016 as a reminder to keep calm:

Even the most angelic among us can fall from grace when pressure mounts up...