This Christmas, we should remember how we have found a way to cope this year – and be proud

So this is Christmas. The bauble covered, brightly-lit full stop we have at the end of each year doesn’t seem like the old familiar friend it always has been.

Tier 3 and tier 4 have plunged plans into the sea. For the first time since I moved to my neighbourhood seven years ago, there will be no gallivanting from house to house, scoffing my neighbours’ mince pies and quaffing prosecco and wondering for the fifth time that evening into a warm home with twinkling lights and a pretty table laden with party food – “how come this house is so much tidier than mine?” ( I have only recently worked out that most people tidy up and push a hoover about before they have visitors. Everyone seems to have been in on this but me.)

For all the awfulness of this year, as it’s Christmas, I’m going to crank up the glitter and sprinkle some light on the positives. First up, television. It’s good, isn’t it? I never had time to watch it before but now that I’m not skipping about the country doing gigs, I’ve been like a woman from the middle-ages brought into the future and made to watch Brooklyn 99.

I’ve been raving to bewildered friends: “Have you seen programmes? Aren’t they great!” My children are seven and 13. Age-appropriate viewing went out of the window when the three of us cocooned ourselves in lockdown and gulped down series after series of comedies and dramas we would never have found time for in the old world.

Speaking of the children, I was very proud of how I handled homeschooling mine; in short, I didn’t. I tried it, couldn’t manage it, and so left it. People said things like “oh you’re homeschooling?” – like there would be any schools in the first place if parents could work and get have a clue how to plan lessons and get their children to take them seriously as an educator. 

Although gigs disappeared for me, I was still finishing my novel in lockdown and doing other bits of work, as well as maniacally (and inexplicably) re-turfing my garden. There was no way I could have schooled them at home even if I did have the patience.

I was horrific at “home education”. I got one of my daughter’s maths questions wrong (she is seven. Please would you appreciate how hard this is to admit), I got stressed and the whole time wanted to scream “how will we survive!??”. Which is not the calm environment needed for scholarly practice. (Have I even spelled “practise” correctly? I have no idea.  How can anyone imagine it’s a good idea to put me in charge of their learning.)

All I was good for was reading with, singing with, dancing with and doing roly polys with the dog and I’m not sure if those things will be enough to get them into a Russell Group university. I gave up on the whole thing on day three and left my daughter to BBC Bitesize and my son to his school’s online programme.

Teachers don’t pull it out of a hat. I’ve always respected teachers but now I am in awe. Those who can, teach and those who can’t, do roly polys.

“Pivot” is the business-speak word for “your career as you know it has disappeared so you’d better do something else quick before you lose your house”. I pivoted by doing online talks for corporate companies. It’s something I enjoy and will continue to do. The only problem was the publicity for it.

The most recent photo of myself was for my comedy show Skittish Warrior. It was a picture of me in a suit of armour holding a guinea pig. It’s the sort of picture which makes sense pasted on a wall at the Edinburgh Festival, not so much when promoting a talk about diversity. Not much is making sense at the moment though so me and the guinea pig seem to be getting away with it.

I got a second dog in lockdown, a Romanian rescue dog called Benji. My dogs have played a big part in keeping my spirits up this year and not sinking into hopelessness. It’s hard to let your mind get too gloomy when you have a dog bouncing around your home which has spent its life living on the streets and rooting through bins.

The mess and destruction Benji has brought into our home has been a tonic. Every day we learn of new things that trigger him, a leaf falling off a tree, the fluffy lining of my winter coat, the smell of sealant, all set him off into a wild volley of barks which take an hour to calm. There’s little time for pandemic stress when you are mopping poop off the floor for the fifteenth time that morning.

This Christmas we should take a moment to look at the ways we have found to cope and be proud. I will be raising a glass to that, before Benji knocks it out of my hand and pees on the sofa.