Our pre-Christmas coronavirus lockdown has reminded us of the pandemic’s bleakest times

‘Twas the nightmare before Christmas, when all through the house

My dear son stirred constantly, his fire undoused…

All in all, we have been lucky. Back in June, my son’s school year was one of those to reopen for a couple of in-person teaching days per week, restoring some semblance of normality to his life and ours after those early, desperate months of the pandemic. And since September, he and my daughter – at infant and junior schools respectively – have been taught in class without interruption.

The Friday before last, however, he and I arrived at school to find the gates shut and his friends absent. Evidently, we had failed to get the memo. The headteacher saw us in our flummoxed state and came to explain: a positive Covid case in Year 1 (albeit not in my son’s class) meant an early start to the Christmas hols, and no more school till January.

We trudged back up the familiar hill, Tristan teary because he’d been due to receive an award that day, and me with a rising sense of dread at the prospect of a return to home schooling.

Back in the days of the original coronavirus lockdown, everyone had tried their best. Like countless families around the UK, we tried to create a sense of routine: we exercised with Joe Wicks or some other internet bod each morning (I soon gave up on that, I confess); we went for a walk late in the afternoon; and in between we sat the children down and helped them through the tasks set each day by their teachers.

But the novelty soon wore thin. The school work was minimal, yet convincing the kids to do it became ever more difficult – bribery was essential. My wife and I both took the odd day of leave and worked at strange times; then my wife took unpaid leave, and eventually reduced her weekly hours by a third, for good. The juggling was unsustainable.

What’s more, while our daughter was broadly content – if, and perhaps due to being, largely unchallenged – Tristan became a tightly coiled spring, ready to leap at any moment. Rages would explode, apparently self-igniting. From being the kind of child you might see in an advert for Werther’s Original, he turned into the type of monster I’d only ever seen on trailers for Supernanny. It was a period of utter, barely remitting awfulness. Still, we got though it. Not everyone did.

This time round, at least we knew there was a time limit. Ten days of isolation for Tristan; and most crucially, just three days when both his parents would be juggling jobs with schooling. True, my wife’s new job – palliative nursing in the community – could not be as flexible as her previous one, and we both had a ton of stuff to do; but only three days. We could make it work, right?

Well, just about. Thanks to his school’s good planning, weekdays had more structure – with fuller lesson plans and some teaching delivered remotely. Grappling with conference calls is plainly a skill for the modern age, and there was something joyful about listening to the class teacher plead with little Holly and cheeky Dylan to “unmute yourself if you want to say something”, only for Dylan to choke desperately: “But I never even had my hand up!”

On Wednesday, the kids had a surprise video call from Father Christmas, complete with mask and – in a strange twist – a red nose, which made me wonder what kind of relationship he really has with Rudolph. For a moment it seemed as if he wouldn’t be able to ask the children in turn what present they wanted for the big day, as the participants on the call kept shuffling around his screen. But most of the boys wanted football shirts, so it wouldn’t have mattered much. One little girl said she was hoping for kittens – “just one kitten, I think”, her mother cried from an unseen corner.

By Thursday, the desire to step beyond the boundary of the garden gate was almost unbearable. Kicking a foam ball endlessly around the house can only reduce a small boy’s frustration so far. Still, the end was in sight.

And of course, we know this level of inconvenience is small beer really. Shuffling around some annual leave, or keeping an eye on a small child’s screen as well as my own; dealing with the occasional tantrum and working late into the night to make up for lost hours during the day – all moderately trying, but in this most peculiar of years, perspective (though sometimes hard to maintain) is the greatest guard against despair.  And compared to many, our good fortune is clear.

That said, I’m already looking forward to the start of next term…