Z buys a Christmas tree

I suppose I will have to go through a whole year or more of ‘firsts.’  Today was one of them.  I went to buy a Christmas tree.  That’s always been Russell’s job.  And tomorrow, once I’ve found the stand, I’ll put it up and decorate it – though I’ll have to shift some furniture first, it’s bushy.

Another first, now I think about it, is Christmas boxes.  Russell always liked to leave the Christmas tips.  I gave my cleaners £15 each and I’ve left £10 for the milkman – I’m guessing really, I don’t know how much is appropriate.  I remember that, when I was a child, my mother packed up parcels of tea for the dustmen, but she might well have slipped in a pound note for each of them too.  I’m assuming that there will be four and a fiver each is okay?  Any advice would be very welcome.  And £20 for the postman? Yet there are several postmen, so who will get it is a matter of chance.  This is all a bit grown up for me, I’m 61 years old and I’ve never done it before and I’m floundering.  I feel tearful and inept.

The reason is not about the Christmas presents (and I feel that the lovely people who come and give quietly excellent service all through the year deserve their tip and really want to be appropriate) but because my friend Marian is dying.  I just wrote this on Facebook because, frankly, I knew I’d get those virtual hugs and rather needed them.

A very old friend had a stroke a few weeks ago. She was doing well and was pleased to have her friends’ cards and loving messages, but then she had another, more serious one. Her elder sister, aged 99, has taken the intolerably difficult decision to remove life-giving support. It’s the right decision, but how we will all miss her.

That I feel awful isn’t relevant, this isn’t about me, though I’m not going to turn away from a virtual hug. Please think kindly about dear Marian and her family.

This has been a hard year for me and my friends.  I hope it has been better for you.  

Tomorrow, I will decorate my Christmas tree.  Onwards, my friends, and upwards.  Always remember, laugh and the world laughs with you.  Cry and you get what you want….oh, wait…..

 

9 comments on “Z buys a Christmas tree

  1. Z Post author

    It shouldn’t be about me, though. Thank you. She’ll be 97 if she lives another 3 weeks, there’s no real cause for sadness, but we’ll miss her awfully.

    Reply
  2. sablonneuse

    Plenty of hugs from me too.

    It’s good to see your sense of humour coming through despite how you must be feeling.

    Keep smiling!

    Bisous

    Reply
  3. Z Post author

    I’ve spent quite some time this morning itemising values and sent them off to the solicitor. That’s a big load off my mind again and I feel better for it. Now off to Zerlina’s carol concert.

    Thank you all. I can’t feel much for myself, I have too tight a clamp on myself, but I can feel for others and that’s probably my release at present. Odd, innit?

    Reply
  4. 63mago

    I really should give the postman a bottle of wine, he deserves it. He’s doing his rounds here by bicycle, an old one with three gears, while the younger people who accidentially jump in when he has his day off all use a modern electric one.
    Let me hug you, dear Z. It was a tough year.
    No tree here this year, but I will look for that box with the family’s decorations, there’s a lot of jetsam to be found in it, some is even nice to look at.

    Reply

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