Feeling the festive stress yet? December is one of the most stressful months of the year if the experts are to be believed, and I can’t say I’m surprised.

Family life is hectic enough as it is without the fair-going, present-buying, play-watching, food-prepping, work and childcare-juggling and umpteen other things associated with Christmas to contend with.

A letter to myself this time next year

Which is why I think it’s important to take a step back and reflect on what to do differently next year – or, more specifically, what not to do.

This time next year, all being well, baby number four will have arrived and we’ll be a family of six, so I thought it would be fun to end the year with a letter to myself this time next year. Hopefully some of you will be able to relate!

A letter to myself this time next year

1. Ignore social media posts about people having Christmas all wrapped up by the first week of December. Or worse, November. Better still, unfollow them.

2. Don’t get a floor-standing Christmas tree. If one of the kids doesn’t pull it down, the cat will.

A letter to myself

3. Do read the class newsletter on the day it comes home. Not the night before the class Christmas party when it’s your job to produce savoury food.

4. Remember that Elf on the Shelf and Nutella are a bad combination – it’ll take you the rest of December to get the stuff off. And even then there’ll still be traces of it.

A letter to myself

5. Don’t be sucked in to buying Elf on the Shelf clothes. Elves do not need clothes.

6. Make contingency plans for the outdoor school Christmas concert. Remember what happened last year.

A letter to myself

7. Don’t assume that once you’ve all gone down with a bug that will be it for the year. Round two is just a cough and a sneeze away.

8. Remember you’re no longer pregnant and can take the edge off it all with a glass of wine or two. For medicinal purposes only, of course. Yay!

A letter to myself

What would you tell yourself this time next year? Can you relate to any of the above? I’d love to know!

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