Where were you when you were reminded that Christmas was looming? This year for me it was mid-October in a Tesco Metro in Cambridge, when sleigh bells began jingling ominously through the PA over an advert for extra Christmas staff.
Like so many women involved in the Sisyphean daily juggle of children, home, the family diary — plus that other thing we need to do, earn a living — this is a trigger for the first meltdown of the season. And the clocks hadn’t even gone back. Similarly, my middle child observing that “I can’t believe it’s only two months until Christmas” at a particularly tense juncture almost had me bursting into tears.
