Tuesday 11 December 2012

Waiting for the end: A rant

It's December.  Nearly mid December.  The advent calendars are nearly half opened.  Chocolate Santa wrappings litter the carpet, along with the little plastic bags the lego comes in.

The kids have decorated the birds cage.  Poor bird looks terrified, he clearly needs some Christmas spirit.

The bird is the non shiny thing at the back.
82 chocolate Santas have gone into approximately 82 cards and gone to school and preschool.

I have two more purchases to make and I'm done with Christmas shopping.  I intend for this to occur today.

Christmas Day is two seemingly endless weeks away.  We are supposed to be slowing down, but every extra curricular activity my kids do seems to be dragging out as far as possible.

As a result, the fishwifery in this house is appalling.

Homework has finished.  At least there's no morning nagging in that regard.

I'm 99% certain they are not learning a thing at school which is now a glorified babysitting service for parents needing to work or do Christmas shopping (or blog).

Band practice has finished.

But sax lessons continue til this Friday.  Loads of kids finished music lessons at the end of November.  But not us.  Oh no.

Karate, in a mad last burst of enthusiasm, has it's grading day not today but next Tuesday.  It's been an 11 week term, surely we don't need to drag martial arts out any further than this?

Even T ball is carrying on with training and a final game this week.  Why?  Sure, it's been fun, but all the other summer sports have stopped.  Where's the break, the easing off?  

Tennis finishes tomorrow.  Thank goodness.

I've had to take matters into my own hands to some extent, to counteract the mad continuation of extracurricular activities way beyond the limits of exhausted children, parents and I'm sure, teachers.

Swimming goes to the end, closing on 21st December.  I'm not.  But it does.  Last lessons for us should be Wednesday 19th but we are pulling up stumps after tomorrow, and on Wednesday 19th at 5pm I will be enjoying a glass of bubbles and celebrating the last day of school 2012, for all of us, but especially the last day of preschool ever for my youngest.

Gymnastics too, wants Sarah to attend until Thursday 20th.  I cannot tell you how low the chances are of this happening.  But I've paid.  And she's already missing swimming.  So we might make the effort.

Enough already, organisers of gymnastics, karate and swimming lessons.  Give us a break! Give yourselves a break.

Is it just me, or has it been a long year?

In an attempt to influence popular culture I have even slowed this blog down to a couple of posts a week in a nod to the allegedly relaxed ambience of the Christmas Season.

So far, I can't see that my efforts are having a wider effect, although I'm using the spare time to wrap gifts which is pleasant.