Lies We Tell Mothers: A True Story
Page 20
Lexi and Laya’s eyes were full of wonder when we told them about the big fat man who would magically squeeze himself down the chimney that evening.
Lexi helpfully explained away all the Santa plot holes for her little sister.
‘Well, he can visit the children without chimneys, Laya, because he has a magic key to all the houses.’
As a family, we decided to do the following:
Collect fresh holly from the woods to decorate the house
Make Christmas cookies
Watch Home Alone and pop popcorn
The kids were sooo excited. Demi and I were sooo happy and thankful for our life.
We were right smug bastards.
OK, so it would be nice if the kids woke up a bit later, had eaten the healthy breakfast I made, and hadn’t left a trail of Disney DVDs and fancy-dress items around the house. But all in all, life was good.
I no longer looked like a dishevelled winter hobo, as I had the year Lexi was born. I’d embraced looser jeans, brightly coloured tops, Converse, wool coats, scarves and knee-high leather boots. I got rid of the home-dyed streaks in my hair and had an actual adult hairstyle. My skin was a lot better, since we now got an organic vegetable bag and cooked our own meals. And of course, I was smiling a lot. That’s always a good look.
Better still, we no longer lived in an orange-and-brown one-bedroom old-lady flat, piled high with baby detritus and second-hand (or stolen) furniture. We had a proper family home with beautiful modern furniture we’d actually paid for, including a huge dining table and an American-style fridge with kids’ pictures all over it. The downstairs was big and open-plan with plenty of room for a massive Christmas tree and presents. We had a fireplace to hang the stockings, and front and back gardens strung with Christmas lights.
In short, our life sparkled with Christmas magic.
The kids enjoying our house at Christmas time. Look – no orange wallpaper!
If you’d shoved us into this life five years ago, we would have found it horrendous.
‘What’s that? I can’t even leave the house when I want? But what if we run out of milk? I have to take these kids with me everywhere? But that will take ages . . . and you’re saying I have to do this every single day?’
We may have decided not to bother with kids at all.
But we would have been wrong.
Totally wrong.
So we headed into the woods, laughing and joking and pretending to be dragons and chasing the kids.
We cut holly for the mantelpiece, stopped Laya attacking people with the giant shears, then finally wrestled her to the ground and took them from her.
Back home, we cut and tied the holly into bunches for our mantelpiece and roasted some chestnuts.
We made Christmas bird cakes for the robins hopping around our garden, and hung an elaborate, messy wreath on our front door. We baked Christmas cookies (from a packet, admittedly). The cookies were a bit misshapen and the wreath full of spider webs, but it was fine – the kids had fun.
We were like a John Lewis advert, except our clothes probably needed more ironing.
That afternoon, we sat with the kids, eating misshapen Christmas cookies then had a Christmas-inspired turkey and cranberry-sauce pizza for tea (mistake) and mince-pie ice cream (actually quite nice). Then we lit the wood-burning stove, sat on the big sofa (big enough for four people now) under our big, leopard-print, snuggly blanket and watched a family Christmas movie that Demi claimed made him feel physically sick.
Demi and I had a few glasses of sherry.
It was the perfect day, made even more perfect by the fact we had many more years with the kids to come.
Before bed, we let the kids lay out food and drink for Santa – casually steering them towards the things Demi and I wanted to eat and drink.
‘I think Santa would like a nice cold glass of Prosecco this year, wouldn’t he? And one of those Marks & Spencer all-butter, double-chocolate cookies for Rudolph? He’ll be sick of carrots . . . no, it’s fine. Reindeers can eat wheat. They don’t have intolerances like your friend at school. And yes, chocolate is fine for them too. No, it won’t poison Rudolph. You’re thinking about dogs . . .’
We hung the oversized stockings above the fireplace, accompanied by the sort of speech my mum used to give about how Santa gives a lot these days – too much really – and how when we were growing up we had a normal-sized stocking containing one small present, a satsuma and a walnut.
When the kids became tired to the point of irritating, we packed them off to bed and watched Die Hard. Then we had a nice early night, smug in the knowledge that tomorrow morning we wouldn’t be hungover like all those young child-free people.
‘Do you remember our first Christmas with Lexi?’ I asked Demi.
Demi nodded, his face turning white. ‘Ugh. Yes. It was awful. We didn’t know what we were doing, did we? And you were so anxious.’
‘No, I wasn’t!’
I was, but . . . you know, it’s a bit like when people say bad things about your parents. I can say it, but you can’t.
On Christmas Day, our house was warm and Christmassy and twinkling with magical lights (which might have been a fire hazard left on overnight, now I think about it . . .).
Stockings were placed at the end of the kids’ beds. Santa’s empty Prosecco glass sat by the wood-burning stove and Rudolph’s cookie was nothing but crumbs.
Gleaming presents from ‘Santa’ waited for the kids under the tree: a Play-Doh Hair Salon for Laya and ill-advised roller skates for Lexi. (We tried to persuade her that roller skates are harder than they look – she fell over many times on Christmas morning.)
I woke up before the kids (5 a.m.) and made myself a nice cup of tea, enjoying our Christmassy house and the peace and quiet. I thought about that first Christmas as a new parent, when bats had beaten their wings in my chest (writers are so dramatic, aren’t they?) and I’d felt so lonely and afraid.
I thought about how far we’d come and how happy we were. How having kids had been the hardest journey, but also the best decision we’d ever made.
Then the kids woke up.
Bloody hell.
Why couldn’t they sleep a little bit longer? WHY? It was only 5 a.m. for goodness’ sake . . .
‘Mummy, Mummy, Mummy, Christmas DAAAAAAAY!’
Still, nice to see their excited little faces.
‘Hey, kids!’ I enthused. ‘Have you seen your stockings? They’re on your beds. Santa leaves them there so you STAY IN YOUR BEDROOMS and open them before you wake your dad up. He gets grumpy when he’s tired. That’s why Santa does stockings. To give the parents a longer rest.’
‘But you’re up already—’
‘I’m relaxing!’
‘Why do YOU need to relax. Dad does all the cooking—’
‘I do plenty!’
‘A cheeseboard isn’t cooking.’
‘YES, IT IS!’
After two minutes of stocking distraction, the kids came piling into our bedroom and jumped on our bed.
‘Santa, Santa, Santa!’
Demi put on his Santa onesie and jumped up and down on the bed too.
‘Santa, Santa!’
‘Can everyone PLEASE KEEP STILL!’ I shouted. ‘I’m holding a hot cup of tea!’
At 5.05 a.m. we succumbed to the children’s request to come downstairs and open their big presents.
‘Isn’t it funny?’ Lexi laughed. ‘Santa uses the same wrapping paper as we do!’
Yes. Hilarious. But don’t think too much about it . . .
I attempted special eggs Benedict for breakfast, but ended up with swirls of egg white in a pan of boiling water.
Poaching an egg is impossible. Absolutely impossible.
Luckily, the kids hadn’t wanted eggs Benedict anyway and happily settled for ‘Christmas’ Coco Pops (Coco the Monkey was holding a holly sprig on the cereal box, so you know . . . a festive breakfast).
Demi kindly stepped in and made eggs and bacon wh
ile playing reggae Christmas songs.
We had fun.
The Buddha says the path to enlightenment is paved with many little deaths.
When Lexi was born it sometimes felt like life had ended.
It was true – a life had ended.
But another was just beginning.
It had happened. After five long years of parenthood, we had finally become parents.
And we wouldn’t change it for the world.
Family happiness. We have a lot of fun with these little girls. Wouldn’t change ’em. Well, you can’t, can you? No – that’s a joke, girls. We really honestly wouldn’t change you.
THANK YOU for finishing my book.
I love you ever so much.
If you have a minute, PLEASE write a review.
I read ALL my Amazon and Goodreads reviews (yes, the bad ones do make me cry) and good reviews mean EVERYTHING.
Reviews don’t have to be fancy. In fact, just one word is great (as long as it isn’t ‘shit’ . . .). And they do more good than you could ever imagine.
So GO AHEAD and review – I would LOVE to see what you have to say.
I’m a chatty sort and LOVE talking to readers. If you want to ask me any questions about the book or talk about anything at all, get in touch:
Email: suzykquinn@devoted-ebooks.com
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Suzy Xxx
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Suzy K Quinn is a British fiction author, and writes in three different genres: psychological thriller, comedy and romance.
She was first published by Hachette in 2010 with her debut novel Glass Geishas (now Night Girls), then self-published a romance series, the Ivy Lessons, which became an international bestseller, selling half a million copies and becoming a #1 Kindle romance bestseller in the US and UK.
After her second daughter was born, she self-published the Bad Mother’s Diary series, which also became a #1 Kindle bestseller.
Suzy K Quinn’s novels have been translated into seven languages and her books have sold over three quarters of a million copies worldwide.
Suzy lives in Wivenhoe, Essex, with her husband Demi and two daughters. She would love another baby but her pelvic floor says no.
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