Anthea Turner

How I See It...

Hello,

The internet shopping par t of my Christmas is well under way, and I hope to have all gifts bought, delivered and possibly wrapped by the end of November so I can enjoy all the twinkly nice bits that the festive season has to offer.

GROUNDED

If you are now reaching for a bucket of dir ty floor water to throw over my self-righteous little head, in the words of the Spice Girls, “Stop right there”! This flurr y of organisation is only happening because I’ve broken a bone in my foot – top section of my fifth metatarsal to be exact – so I’m grounded.

However, with the initial pain now subsided, this catastrophe couldn’t have come at a better time for me to sor t Christmas out. I’ve written a book The Per fect Christmas and talk a good story when it comes to organisation since divorce (which by its ver y nature changes many previously set-in-stone Christmas traditions), and the girls are adults now, so I’ve lately skidded to December 25 by the seat of my pants!

LIVING IN AN ADVERT?

I can’t quite get my head around how I managed to find time to send out so many Christmas cards, many of which said We must meet up, knowing it was never going to happen. But Christmas changes as our lives change and we should embrace this, go with the flow and not think that unless we’re living in a John Lewis adver t, we’ve blown it.

CALMER CHRISTMAS

What I do feel in the air for us this Christmas is a calmer, slightly more mindful, even grateful approach. For all the pandemic has taken, it has left us all with reminders of life’s fragility, and how much of our cur tailed Christmas last year we didn’t miss.

With COP26 not long over, it’s not cool to be excessive, which is something we tend to do at Christmas, forgetting that it’s just one day. The shops are only closed that one day and if there’s an emergency, corner shops are there to help.

SHOES!

So pretend that, like me, you left a shoe shop clutching The Beautiful Shoes, so consumed in imagining the beautiful shoes on your dainty little feet that you hailed a cab to transpor t them to their new home so they could nestle with other beautiful shoes. Then catastrophe! You slip of f the pavement and the shoes go flying through the air. The twisted foot says they are doomed to stay in their box for the next 6 weeks, but happy in the knowledge that their new owner’s Christmas will be very organised!

Love, Anthea X