My ex will be at my Christmas table but he’s loved-up with someone else – I’m not sure he’ll be back next year
IT’S the most wonderful time of the year . . .
Call me Public Enemy (No1) if you like, but I say Don’t Believe The Hype.
It’s Christmas Eve and while I’m a self-confessed Christmas nut, I feel defeated by the stress, doom and relentless gloom we’re being forced to endure this year.
Some of you will be working today. Others will be forced to tolerate family members you’ve spent much of the year avoiding.
And, of course, many people will be alone. It’s such a conflicting time.
The pressure at this time of year is palpable.
As a perfectionist, the burden on my shoulders comes mostly from me.
I think months ahead — contemplating even the smallest detail which I hope will be noticed and appreciated by my family.
As I head into the final week, I am not only cream-crackered but have run out of steam and feel devoid of enthusiasm.
I start to question everything — what it is I’m trying to achieve and what really matters.
So it brought me great joy to hear that, despite my military operation, Christine McGuinness is planning to serve her family chicken nuggets and chips.
I like her approach and am wondering if she hasn’t got a point. Maybe she’s got it right and I’m the fool.
I know I’m not the only one who feels negativity has doubled this year.
You can have the most luxurious crackers on your table, the swankiest tree, the most elaborate spread of food, cutest decorations and the most brilliant presents.
You might even have washed your hair for the big day. But why? What is it really all about?
This year feels different for other reasons, too, because three out of four children have now flown the nest and I still have my ex-husband at the table, even though he’s loved up with someone else.
He’ll be there for the sake of the kids, as he has been for the past four years since we separated, in order that they have a sense of continuity.
I’m not sure how well and for how long that’s going to go on working for me.
I mean, there is a reason why you divorce someone — and it’s not to spend high days and holidays together.
Many will be struggling with sharing kids over Christmas.
It’s so much more poignant at a time when everyone is supposed to play happy families.
The strain of us all being forced to be together will doubtless lead to a stampede to divorce lawyers in early January. It’s sad, but true.
We know not everyone will have family to spend Christmas with.
Some won’t even have friends, a decent meal — let alone a roof over their head.
Others will be feeling the loss of loved ones. And yet, the rest of us are driven by some insane pursuit of perfection. For what?
For the record, members of my clan have a habit of dying around Christmas time.
It’s as if it has become some kind of extended family tradition over the decades.
I lost three grandads and my father around these intense times of supposed celebration.
This might go some way to explaining my overwhelming sense of trepidation as the season approaches.
With Christmas comes family. And family doesn’t always bring good tidings of great joy but they bring issues, tensions and atmospheres.
I fall into the same trap every single year of firmly believing everything will be supreme.
UNGRATEFUL FACES
I think if I work even harder at getting everything right, if I go that extra mile, if I nearly die from exhaustion this year maybe, just maybe, it will be greeted with appreciation, great ambience and good moods.
It never works out like that. I slave away and wear myself to within an inch of my sanity.
But still there will be some argument or joke between family members that lands the wrong way with someone.
Or a fight over who sits where on the sofa.
An argument about something that happened earlier in the year, which most definitely needs to be brought up on Christmas Day.
Manners and decent behaviour fly out the window.
Peace and goodwill to all men is trampled on and the big day ends up being like a chapter of Lord Of The Flies, with everyone out for themselves.
All in all, I know I’m lucky to have enough food to feed the five thousand.
To have a roof over my head. To have a warm house filled with loved ones.
But we always seem to want what we can’t have.
Those who are alone and lonely, want company.
And those of us forced to face a sea of ungrateful faces filled with attitude or apathy secretly long for space, calm and a plate of chicken nuggets.
Plastic’s not fantastic, ladies
WHEN I once suggested Katie Price was addicted to plastic surgery, her fans slated me.
But Katie has now gone to Belgium to get her SIXTEENTH boob job.
So do all those naive followers who insisted on defending her to the hilt still believe she is not enslaved to cosmetic surgery?
Of course it’s nice to be right but with Katie, there’s a stench of desperation and (as her ex-husband Peter Andre would say), insania.
It’s pure bonkers and not without its risks.
Word on the street is that she wants to have the biggest bazukas in the country.
Why? Is she planning on touring her exhibit of attributes like a modern-day Madame Tussauds?
I’m baffled. I acknowledge she’s a woman in her own right but as a mother, you have to wonder how this affects her kids – especially her daughters witnessing their mother’s relentless pursuit of a different body.
In another part of La-La Land, Charlotte Crosby of Geordie Shore fame has posted pictures of herself looking battered and bruised after having her lip fillers dissolved.
Clearly, the prospect of carrying on walking around as if you have two Michelin tyres attached to your mouth no longer appeals.
And I don’t know how it ever did. The standard look for young women nowadays is over-inflated lips, half a ton of cheek filler, hair extensions, false nails and eyelashes and a boob job that invariably looks like two saucepans have been attached to their chest.
A lot of these girls are still in their twenties, so they can’t say they’re fighting ageing – something I battle with daily.
But why do they go down this route in the first place?
I mean, what did Charlotte see when she looked in the mirror at her swollen, augmented lips?
They must have made eating and speaking tricky.
She is such a pretty young girl who decided to mess with her face.
Katie was a sweet-looking girl before she turned herself into a hot mess of plastic surgery.
It’s great that people have the ability to change things about their appearance that might have afflicted them all their lives.
But just because you can, doesn’t mean you should, hey, Simon Cowell?
Unease at bill change
THE Gender Recognition Reform Bill is passed in Scotland and extended to 16 and 17-year-olds.
It is not a historic day for equality.
It does not make me feel safe as a woman to know that any man will find it easier to change his gender legally and remove the need for a psychiatric diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
Self-identification now means those applying for a change of gender will no longer have to wait two years, but can get it done in three months.
I have no desire to marginalise the one per cent of the population who are trans.
And I have no personal experience of how unbearable it must be for those who feel they have been born into the wrong gender.
But my opinion does not make me a transphobe.
Just like they want to protect their rights, I wish to protect my opinion, my feelings and my fears.
Single-sex spaces are sacred but will no longer be so in Scotland.
I am clear that not all trans women are violent.
But I’m also very clear that it will now be easier to change your gender than it is to get a passport.
It’s a dark day on a very slippery slope.
Beth and lionesses have tamed the critics
AS we head towards the end of a most peculiar year, nothing could be more fitting than seeing Beth Mead pick up Sports Personality Of The Year this week.
Not only did she score six goals during Euro 2022, but she got the Golden Boot and was named player of the tournament.
To top it all, she is the first Woman Footballer to win SPOTY.
Of course, no woman is an island.
Her achievements were down to the collective and we watched the Lionesses roar to success over Germany in the final.
The side also won Team Of The Year and Sarina Wiegman won Coach Of The Year.
It’s a sublime tribute to a team of girls who rocked up to the awards ceremony with all the unassuming, self-deprecating and relaxed manner in which they approached the tournament.
This team has completely changed our attitude to women’s football.
As a young girl, I used to go to watch women play.
I played football myself in Sweden but was forced to give up when I landed on these shores because there really wasn’t much of a community for girls’ football.
The Lionesses have changed everything.
This summer they elevated the game to dizzying heights. It was fast-paced and interesting.
They played with hunger and skill and were relentless in their pursuit.
They showed the men a thing or two about bringing football home and I know for a fact I’ll be following women’s football with renewed enthusiasm.
Jill Scott taking the I’m A Celebrity crown warmed the cockles of my cynical heart.
These girls. These women. They are all queens. All hail the Lionesses.