I was doing so well. I had never have been so organised and so ahead of myself. Because there wasn’t much to do in lockdown I had made my Christmas cake, prepared lots of vegetarian mincemeat and even wrapped one present and when my DH and I sat down together to begin writing our Christmas cards I was practically polishing my halo.
I wrote the greetings and letters while he put the addresses on the envelopes, added stamps, and sorted them into piles: home delivery, those going abroad, those to be put in with presents. The piles grew higher and I felt more and more pleased with myself – not to put too fine a point on it, I was feeling decidedly smug.
To be honest I hadn’t been that keen on some I bought but I had been in a hurry to get home and get cracking on them and there hadn’t been much choice in Oxfam, so three of the packets I bought showed twee-looking sheep adorned with Christmas hats. I reassured myself that sheep had been present at the Nativity and I liked the wording underneath: “Christmas Blessings’ it said which was a lovely thought and one which would appeal to both religious and irreligious recipients.
Pride comes before a fall and so it was. The fatal flaw in all this (and there was always a fatal flaw in Shakespeare, although this is more of a farce than a tragedy) was that I had not put my glasses on when I bought them. This was not because of vanity but because I was so keen to get ahead of my usually dilatory Christmas preparations that I didn’t bother rummaging about in my bag to find them. I should have been more careful because when I reread the words on the front of the cards I got a shock. I put my head in my hands but I couldn’t face starting all over again so quite a lot of people are going to get be a bit confused when they get their cards. What I had thought said Christmas Blessings, actually read, Christmas Bleatings!
So, well ahead of time, sincere Christmas Bleatings to one and all!
