5 reasons Christmas Eve was more stressful than planned

1. Daddy T and I started the day bright and early in Slough Retail Park to buy a big present for Big Girl, which we had originally tried to buy online. When panicking about the missing toy yesterday, the kind store manager of Smyths Toys Superstore in Slough called and offered to put one on hold for us to collect. The shop was open until 11pm last night and opened at 8am this morning. Pretty awesome for stressed out parents like ourselves.

2. When we returned from Slough we were meant to go to Mr Popper’s Penguins at Criterion Theatre to review the family-friendly West End production, but those plans were quickly cancelled when we discovered four-year-old Big Girl looked very unwell.

3. Instead of the whole family enjoying a fun late morning musical, Big Girl and I swung by Coyne Medical, and by the time we got there her temperature was close to 40. Poor thing.

4. When we got back home with antibiotics and ready to continue with a relaxing Christmas Eve, I realised it might be worth checking what was inside the present I had bought for Daddy T back in September to be sure it was a good one. I’m very glad I checked because it was not exactly what I remembered, and I had to excuse myself from the Christmas preparations at home again and rush down to Palmers on Northcote Road, where I knew they stocked something he had wished for.

5. When I returned home from the shopping madness it struck me that the sitting room where we were planning on celebrating Christmas, was not really a sitting room in it’s current state. It looked more like a buggy park in desperate need of Christmas decorations.

Happy Christmas!

Tags: Christmas, Christmas Eve, Criterion Theatre, Mr Popper's Penguins, Smyths Toys