This year’s Christmas wasn’t what everyone was hoping for. Coronavirus has done a number on the majority of us for the best part of the year, and then a week before the day we were all looking forward to we were told that Londoner’s were going into Tier 4 and we witnessed literally a mass exodus as what seemed like millions of people crammed themselves into trains, planes and cars to vacate the capital.

Weirdly I was looking forward to Christmas Day on my own. I had not been invited to the usual yearly gathering with my mum, my brother, his girlfriend and their two children, so I was looking forward to a nice day on my own. They did eventually get round to inviting me, about a week before the day, but by then I had already purchased my food.

Everyone who found out that I was celebrating today on my own looked upon me with sorrow and I’m not quite sure why. What is so wrong with being on your own on Christmas Day? I got up when I wanted, went for a run, ate what I wanted to eat, played the Christmas songs that I wanted, watched whatever I wanted to watch on TV. That sounds like heaven to me.

I had placed a couple of presents under the tree for the dog and she sat herself beside the tree all evening and probably would have spent the night next to it as well if I hadn’t ushered her out and locked the front room door.

In the morning we went for a nice walk, then we opened our presents and I didn’t see her for another two hours as she took her bone into another room. I played some metal Christmas covers while I danced around the kitchen and prepared the dinner.

While the dinner cooked I went for my traditional Christmas Day run, it wasn’t my usual Parkrun, as they are all cancelled, but it felt good working up an appetite. There were a lot of walkers around and I appeared to be the only runner not wearing something festive.

The dinner came out fantastic, and that isn’t me being biased, the turkey literally melted in my mouth and the potatoes …. oh the potatoes. We soon fell asleep only to be rudely woken up by my missus on the phone asking if we were OK. You woke us up to ask if we were OK!?

I went round to see her and the kids in the evening where we watched Coronation Street and EastEnders. I irritated her by constantly asking questions such as: “Who is that?” “I thought she was dead?” “I thought those two were married?” She gets annoyed because even though I don’t ask her to she feels the need to pause the programme and explain these things in great detail to me.

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay