girlofprey

Well, it's been a weird Christmas so far. We had Christmas dinner on Sunday, because mum won't be in to cook it tomorrow (she's a nurse and working). My MN is now in a residential unit in Birmingham, an hour and three quarters away, and we weren't sure we were going to get to see him tomorrow, or over the holidays at all. My dad had a plan to drive down after my mum went to work, but he couldn't just decide to do that, he had to tell a social worker and the residential unit and wait to see if they okayed it. They didn't get back to us until yesterday morning, and said no he couldn't. Then it turned out that they'd misunderstood and thought my dad wanted to do some meeting halfway thing, which they didn't have the staff for, and said yes. Then he offered to come for around 3pm, they said that wouldn't be great as they might be eating, and asked if he could come for 10am instead. To a place a two hour drive away. Anyway, he said yes, and then the question of whether I was going with him seemed to occur (I'd been thinking about it and discussing it with mum), and I said I didn't think I could get up at 7am on Christmas morning to start driving across the county, given my current emotional wellbeing. So we've changed it to arriving at midday. So instead of getting up and spending the morning with mum before she leaves around 12pm, we're now getting up at 9am, doing presents or whatever, then me and dad are leaving at about 10am, before mum goes to work, to get there for 12pm. Then spending an hour or two with him, then driving back for two hours, to have Christmas dinner at about 4pm, which will be a couple of instant meals from the supermarket.

Mum's not seeing any of the kids tomorrow, since she's working, and then my ON and YN and my sister are coming over on Boxing Day. Supposedly their foster parents have gotten them gifts too so they'll have things on Christmas Day, but it still seems a bit weird. But the best we can do. Just weird.

Some traditions remain however. We're having a buffet-style meal tonight, out of party food from Marks and Spencer's, including the seasonal favourite, prawn balls. And mum and I will be fighting over the scissors and tape as we wrap our presents at the last minute tonight. And then it'll be Christmas. I have Friday off, so I'm done with work at least until next week, and free as a bird. Free to look at Boxing Day sales and early January sales. But yeah. It'll be weird.