Christmas is cancelled while we wait for the vaccine...and some summer festivities

LAST week we had a family conference and decided that Christmas 2020 will now be cancelled and will eventually be merged with the festivities in 2021. There is always a risk when this decision is made that perhaps one will not make it through until next year. Few appear to have noticed that the Olympic Games this year have been delayed until 2021, but I guess some competitors who expected to compete this year will not be able to make the deferred games.

Thankfully, a family Christmas is hardly as critical… but just in case, we have decided told go away to a hotel in the late summer and have a delayed Christmas then. Perhaps that will be like Christmas in the southern hemisphere where a beach barbecue can be the normality for the December celebration.

Once we had decided we were going to decline the five-day celebration window that the Government has generously conceded, the next decision to also ignore the tier system was clearly the obvious thing to do as we opt to stay in lockdown instead until our turn arrives to receive the wonder vaccine.

Will this prove to be the start of the return for everyone to a sort of new normal?

Christmas for my family has always meant the inside of the house gets its full share of festive decoration. As a child, my December birthday meant the decorations were always up at the start of the month as the house was readied for the party with friends and relatives. The rationing in place then meant that, as the birthday boy, I received some presents whilst the guests only got a balloon and a piece of cake in a serviette to take home!

The ritual of Christmas decorations has always attracted me and last week saw me make my annual trip up into the loft to bring down the stored decorations.

I somehow forget that each year when I buy something new I ought to throw out the items I can no longer use. The things I fetched down this year was virtually everything - and I could probably have decorated more than one house!

Maybe I will remember to be selective in the new year with what I choose to return to the loft.

Christmas lights these days are the indoor variety. Getting out steps and ladders for the outdoor illuminations of the previous years, I regret, is now beyond me so I restrict myself to those indoors that do not require any climbing.

Nowadays it appears that most of these are battery- rather than mains-powered. This seems a good idea until I find each piece of lighting requires at least two sets of batteries before Twelfth Night.

After Christmas there is a disagreement about the timing for taking down the lights and returning to normal.

I originate from the East Midlands and so am happy to wait until January 6. Senior management is from the South and prefers to see the back of the festive tree once Christmas is over. I wonder when the day will be this year now that we have cancelled the festivities.

The other day we got cards from the weekday paperboy and the weekend paper girl. I always find them a tip because way back in 1957/8 I hated the job. I was required to mark up the round and then deliver the papers. I had to work all seven days of the week and it took around two hours each day. For that effort I received 15 shillings a week which is 75p in decimal currency!

I only saw out the year so that I could knock on the doors for my Christmas tip! I think I got about £15 in total which was pretty good being about 20 times the weekly pay. I wonder what the pay and the tips amounts to nowadays?