December is such a busy month for us. We work in retail, so there really is zero holiday season for us. Instead our hours increase, workload increases and we spend December feeling more stressed than any other month of the year.
This year I was absolutely adamant at spending Christmas alone with one another (we really don’t get much time alone together to enjoy anyway and we haven’t spent a Christmas with just the two of us for the last three years) buuuuuttt the slow renovations and lack of cash has meant we’re now facing our Christmas alone without a kitchen (the woes! I love a good Christmas dinner!) and with rather empty pockets as well.
We decided not to buy presents for one another last year on a money saving mission and it’s the same story this year, but we’ve gone one step further and haven’t even bought a tree, put up any decorations or sent any Christmas cards. Am I a total scrooge OR WHAT? I know this sounds so totally miserable, but to be frank a Christmas tree and any decorations would have just been in the way of our already chaotic building site. And as for the Christmas cards, well… we really only get the odd few anyway. We’ll just pretend they got lost in the post or something 😉 And apparently festive texts are the future anyway…
But one evening scrolling through my I’m-so-jealous-of-everyones-festive-instagram I decided I needed to do something before the big day, so I wouldn’t spend it feeling ridiculously sorry for myself. So I made a tree. From bricks.
It may not be a beautiful fir tree, but it’s our renovation realities. Renovating is tough, financially draining and as much as everyone says to me “renovating looks like so much fun” well, it contains a lot of sacrifice and actually at times, a lot of stress too. A stereotype that lots of non-renovators seem to have, is that anyone renovating, extending, or redoing their home is sat on a pot of gold, often with more money than sense. But that certainly is not the case.
This Christmas for us, is just one of the sacrafices we have had to make to finance our renovation project. I love Christmas and it makes me a little sad to not have a “proper” one; but we make do, we march on through and we look forward to the next Christmas in 365 days instead. 😉 And of course, in the grand scheme of things, we’re still really very fortunate. Christmas is so different for many people and countries out there right now and it’s something that really puts our realities into perspective. Not having a Christmas with all the presents, food and decorations really isn’t so bad.
So, Merry Christmas to you all! And to fellow renovators out there; we may not all have heated, furnished or anywhere near finished homes.. But we WILL get there in the end. And it’ll be damn worth it 🙂
Wishing you a wonderful and mostly dust-free day,
Kerry X
No Comments