The diary of Dad

The annoying jingles and pointless decorations start earlier each year. Radio stations seem to be instructed to only play some of the worst music ever created whilst the TV companies give up on making any new material and just play re-runs of old films that were not great the first 500 times. Yes, it must be Christmas.

This year though things were a little different as it was Robbie’s first ever experience of the wonders and madness of Christmas and I was under clear instructions to give up my Grinch routine. The story here is short and not very sweet, 4 month old babies have no idea what Christmas means.

Our brand new Christmas Eve routine of sitting together on the sofa to watch a family film lasted around 20 minutes due to a lack of interest from our young boss. The Baileys hot chocolate that I had looked forward to all day at work would have to wait until we had tamed him.

We put the Robster to bed and cracked on with our preparations for this momentous occasion that just had to be perfect in our eyes, which Robbie could not care less about. Presents were wrapped, mince pies and carrots half eaten and left out for the rats Santa and I was even ordered to drink a beer and leave an empty can out. It’s a hard life.

The next morning did feel a little strange. Merrily singing Christmas songs to a to boy staring back at me with no emotion on his face was proof that the day was wasted on him. We all sat down together for our special Christmas breakfast, which is known as a fry up on the other 364 days of the year, to plot our marvellous day ahead.

This didn’t take too long as my routine for Christmas would be the same as it had been for the previous 16 years. Eat breakfast, go to work, have a bad day then come home and moan about it. The only difference today was that we had left a small window for opening presents together before the real pain of the day began.

I’ll have to be honest, for all of my moaning, Robbie did love the presents. He had no interest in what they were but wrapping paper was definitely a winner in his eyes. He ripped through to find the presents inside, which he then threw away to continue playing with this amazing paper. Could have easily saved ourselves a bit of money with empty boxes.

Work came and went with the usual misery and stress I always associate with Christmas. Whether it is my own lack of spirit or just coincidence that everyone I meet on this day just happens to be as grumpy as me I will never know. The only difference is that I am being paid to be there, whilst they are spending a lot of money for the pleasure of my company at this special time of year.

Robbie is in bed fast asleep when I get home so all that I can do is give him a kiss and hope he had a great day. I then carry on my trusted routine by sitting in my now very well moulded armchair with a bottle of Sambuca and wash away the memories of another horrific Christmas.

There is a twist to this story. I am now a changed man! Christmas is an amazing time for kids and we discovered this on Robbie’s second attempt. I can honestly say that I am now sitting here, back in my armchair, looking forward to the next one and it’s only February! I will be writing about last Christmas soon, but I’m sure there is only so much you can read about it at this time of year so for now…..

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