23 January 2007
In the last 20 years, I have been away over Christmas 18 times – either on holiday or because we were living in another country. Until this Christmas, our daughter Charlotte had spent two Christmas days at home – aged 6 weeks and aged 3. So, as we are moving to Holland in April, and our house renovations were due to be completed by Sept 1 we decided to invite my entire family and mother-in-law for a family Christmas – 10 in total.
Charlotte was really excited – my excitement turned to worry when our move-in date slipped and slipped until we actually moved in 2 weeks before Christmas – giving us 6 days to carpet, cover windows, put on doors, set up beds – and test the new cooker!
My attempt at being a Domestic Goddess was limited to decorating the tree (a real one) and baking a ham – forget making mince pies, table presents, flower arrangements, etc. We didn’t have too many disasters – we discovered that the bathroom door locks were faulty when people became trapped, my roasting tray was wider than the oven when I tried to put the joint in, the turkey broke in half, I didn’t have 10 of anything that matched, there was nowhere in the house to hang clothes – and I realised Charlotte must be so lonely as an only child seeing the fun she had with her cousins.
Up until now no-one has really missed my husband and I when we move overseas with his job – but now I realise what we are doing to poor Charlotte by moving every two years. She will hardly ever see her Grandparents, cousins, Aunts and Uncles, and will have to get used to yet another house. She has been at the same Nursery for two years and she will have to leave and be the new kid at school – and we will be doing this to her every two years.
Now ground-rush has set in as it is only 12 weeks until we move and there is so much to organise!