Epiphany

Today was the annual Feast of Cramming Quarts into Pint Pots, during which I attempt to pack into three cupboards and a large wooden chest more Christmas decorations than emerged from them a month previously. I’m aware that this inflation is not indefinitely sustainable; each January the available air pockets shrink, and each December I anticipate with gritted teeth that some treasured item will emerge crushed. But despite my very best intentions, every year the wonderful ingenuity of the decoration designers crashes up against my Christmas mission statement, which you may remember is Nothing Succeeds Like Excess, and creates a perfect storm of acquisition.

This year’s additions were a dragonfly, which wasn’t especially hard to lose in the crowd, and two Very Big Baubles, which were.

This afternoon R (whose role in all of this, apart from shifting the Christmas tree, is limited by statute to admiring my handiwork) went so far as to risk offering to put some things up in the loft - but I haven’t got where I am today by taking the path of common sense least resistance, so into the cupboards and chest they all went as usual. I then dusted all the de-decorated surfaces, and generally restored the house to its normal non-festive state.

I’m toadally zorsted.

But I’ve realised that all of this effort and stress could very easily be avoided in future.

We just need to buy a bigger house.