Christmas is coming!
Geez, it's only seven bloody weeks till Christmas.
I'm such a disorganised, scatter-brained, laid-back kind of mother that I expect that I'll be frantically shopping for pressies on Christmas Eve again and wrapping the buggers at 5am on Christmas Day like last year.
I blame it on moving to the Antipodes. I mean, how are you supposed to get your head around Christmas when it's 27 degrees and everyone is heading for the beach in their bikini's? Give me a break here, I've grown up with Christmas being heralded by thermal underwear and hot water bottles.
Even my 5 and 6 year-olds haven't begun to think about what they want Santa to bring, and so far, because we don't watch TV (haha, no TV signal at the beach shack!) they are blissfully unaware of the November onslaught of advertising for 'baby wet-and-puke' and Nintendo DS's.
Last year I was so bloody horrified by friends regaling horrendously long and stupidly expensive lists of Christmas demands from their offspring that I preempted the whole thing in our house. I took great pains to remind my young children that Christmas was all about the birth of baby Jesus. That it was about, sharing and caring and I explained why people exchange presents.
"You see girls, when baby Jesus was born the three wise men came from far away and brought him presents of gold, frankincense and myrrh"
"What's 'frankincenseandmyrrh' mummy?"
Monty Python's The Life of Brian suddenly flashed through my head. No, no myrrh is not some sort of strange animal. I did my best to explain
"Well frankincense is a kind of sweet-smelling oil that was precious in those days and myrrh was a type of special ointment"
"Hmm, they're funny presents to give a baby, I bet he wasn't very pleased with those"
Anyway, yesterday I decided that I'd better put out a few feelers to see what sort of present my little darlings where planning to ask Santa for. You know, just to be sure that the small, mad one wasn't going to demand a particle accelerator and the beautiful, brainy one a first edition Ernest Hemingway or something equally rare.
I admit I was relieved. The beautiful, brainy one smiled sweetly at me and just said "Mummy, I really don't mind as long as it's something really nice like last year" (Phew, she got a second-hand Barbie castle).
However, the small, mad one looked at me a little concerned. " Mummy, I really don't mind either. But what will I do if Santa brings me jewellery, perfume and bottom-cream like baby Jesus?"
.....I smiled and told her not to worry. If I don't pull my finger out and get my act together soon though, Santa may well bring something equally weird and inappropriate for a 5-year-old!