Tag: Holidays
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Surviving Christmas: 7 Top Tips For a Calmer Big Day
In my house, Christmas means dragging, kicking and screaming, the young adults in my family who have inherited the Grinch gene from my husband. And though I understand and respect why some people don’t like Christmas, my response to that attitude is not on my watch, and definitely not at my Christmas table. Hence, despite…
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It was the small, magical moments during our holiday to Hawaii that mattered most
Forgive me for my recent radio silence, but I’m struggling to get back into real time since our return from Hawaii. No doubt, some of you will be interested to know how we fared, having spent so much time reading about my angst in relation to where the fuck to take an anxious, middle-aged man…
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The Prodigal Daughter Is Not Coming Home For Australia Day, She’s Coming To See Us
The prodigal daughter returns this weekend for the first time since she left the nest. While she assures me that she won’t be celebrating Australia Day for political reasons, I’ll believe that when she turns down the special bottle of Champers I’ve bought for tomorrow. Although I only saw her a few days ago, it…
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Fuck Holidays and Resolutions And Bring Back Routine
Michael Buble took us into Christmas again this year, so I’m going to allow him to take us back out gently and buoy you with optimism for the year ahead with his classic rendition of ‘Feeling Good.’ There was something very anally fulfilling about creating my new January 2018 folder for this month’s blog posts…
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What Do You Do When Your Daughter Rejects The Most Sacrosanct Of Family Christmas Traditions?
There has been a rollercoaster of changes in our house recently, all of which are interfering with the slow and steady build up to Christmas and my preparations that I pride myself on each year. That’s the thing about this stage of parenting – one minute you’re stumbling along in a fug of wet-towel-on-the-floor acceptance,…
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Couples Holidays For The Middle-Aged – When Sometimes It’s Easier To Stay At Home
The problem with going away when you finally reach that longed-for stage of almost empty-nesting is that anxiety tends to rear its ugly head at about the same time in your life, and it throws up all sorts of other issues. So although we don’t have to worry about remembering a long list of toddler…
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‘Tis The Season Of The Family Holiday
It’s that character-building time of the year when all those carefully thwarted irritations caused by living with people you didn’t choose to live with, are thrown squarely into the spotlight on the family holiday. Why I insist on instilling this week of hell bonding I have no idea, but I get sentimental after I watch…
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Australian Survives Horror Jelly Fish Attack In Italy
One of the gnawing fears you have when you make the decision to migrate to another country is that your children may respond to the beckoning call of the homeland once they are old enough to decide where they want to live. That worry has been brought home to me over the past few weeks…
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It Takes A Village To Raise A Child…I Hope
Some people believe it takes a village to raise a child; in our case it will probably take a whole fucking city.The lengths you go to, to prevent your dysfunctional, magnet-attracting-trouble teenager, from creating havoc while you’re away. When Louisa Clare shared a post from Revolution From Home entitled In The Absence Of The Village,…
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12 Awful Things I Don’t Miss About Having A Child At School
The first term of the academic year is winding to a close, fortunately in tandem with the time the kids start to become really feral from the intense pressure of having to concentrate for a whole ten weeks. And I imagine that while some mums are dreading the next two weeks of holiday, some will…
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Massage And The Price Of Beauty
With so much festive fun going on recently, I never got the chance to tell you about the best bits of our family holiday before Christmas. How I thought I’d look on the massage table… Being a ‘family holiday’, it obviously wasn’t going to be a moment that involved the family. No, the real standout…
LOUISA SIMMONDS 