Christmas shopping, mince pies, advent calendars… what’s not to love about December?

Mainly I am very into Christmas, except when it turns into one of those working-parent frenzies. I think you know what I mean: sprinting to get to the Nativity play in time (only to get the last seat behind the Dad with flu wearing a huge furry collar and blocking out entire view of stage), realising on December 23rd that there are no cranberries to be had in the entire western hemisphere, weeping because it’s 2.30am on Xmas Eve, you’ve still got 27 presents left to wrap and the Sellotape has just run out.

I blame the Sunday supplements.

Really, did anyone think it was necessary to have colour-coded ‘charger’ plates, napkin rings, centre-pieces and candleholders before the explosion of interior design spreads in the Sunday supplements? Now it is possible to blow your entire Xmas budget just on wreaths, banister garlands, card-display holders, Christmas-scented candles and all related attic fodder that retailers are arm-wrestling us to buy.

Try to have a calm, relaxing and fun Christmas. Life may in fact be too short to stuff a turkey, never mind a mushroom. It is not possible to get or to give everything on everybody’s wish list. So there.

The only must-haves under our Xmas tree this year are (apparently) one microscope and one Sylvanian family. It will be a toy microscope and a recessionista Sylvanian family – they’re coming with a caravan, not a house: does that make the little bunnies trailer trash?!

Now that my buddies are 11 and 7, one is a confirmed Santa cynic (but is keeping it quiet) the other seems to have figured out that Santa is a story but is also keeping quiet in case this leads to less presents.

I think I may go the route of a friend with grown-up children who confided: ‘What do you mean when did I tell them? Santa still brings their present every year. That way they can’t complain to me!’

Meanwhile, I am averting my eyes from the clothes-shop window displays. No, I do not need a new Christmas outfit! Even though I find a sequin very hard to resist. I already have one sequinned skirt and a sequinned dress from previous Christmases and two sequin-studded outfits is probably enough!

Please, please, please go into a bookshop and buy some gorgeous books as Christmas presents. I always love getting and giving books for Christmas. Getting a book means someone has really taken time to think about you and what you would enjoy.

These titles are already hidden in my wardrobe for this Christmas:

For the serious readers

Margaret Atwood – The Year of the Flood

John Banville – Infinities

For the comedy seeker

PG Wodehouse – The Inimitable Jeeves (lovely hardback edition)

For the babies

Helen Cooper – Pumpkin Soup

John and Janet Ahldberg – Each Peach Pear Plum

Lauren Child’s latest!

For the older boys

John Connolley – The Gates

Robert Muchamore – Eagle Day

For the glamour puss

Axel Madsen – Chanel (this is a great biog, loved it!)

And one title I really have to recommend when the whole Christmas spendathon gets way too much: Love Is Not Enough – A Smart Woman’s Guide To Money by Merryn Somerset Webb. This girl is genius. She will explain all that complicated financial jargon and change the way you budget forever. (I may have to staple Annie to a chair and make her read it!)

A very, very happy Christmas when you finally get there!

It was beautiful down there: dazzlingly blue and turquoise seas, big waves, long, sandy, deserted beaches. It really is a very special place.

Being brave or foolhardy, I’m not sure which, we booked in for a family surfing lesson. First of all, this involved wetsuits, for everyone. The four of us looked like – remember that kids’ film about the family of superheroes, The Incredibles? Yes that was us, except we were armed with a huge yellow surfboard or giant banana.

It turns out that surfing is quite scary (to begin with, especially if you’re convinced your 6 yr old is about to drown) not to mention exhausting. Muscles I’d never felt before were left aching, but we all worked very hard for our gorgeous surf instructor, yes him of the sea-bleached, tousled hair, a mahogany sea-tan, rippling surfer muscles… I’m sorry, I noticed, I’m only human.

When he referred to my not quite so rippling husband as ‘The Big Fella’ I had to giggle, but I wasn’t laughing quite so hard when he referred to me as: ‘Mum’ !!!! Oh. My. God. That is crossing a line. I’ve clearly got to the age where handsome young men start thinking of me as ‘Mum’. This is deeply, deeply tragic. And I have to say, I didn’t think I was wearing my wetsuit so badly. All that treadmill running had paid off slightly.

I didn’t manage to stand up on my board, but I did do a lot of body boarding which was brilliant. On the beach there were loads of properly old ladies (ie older than me) in suits with board, just grinning from ear to ear. Because it is brilliant fun. This is clearly the secret to a British seaside summer, you’ve got to get in and get wet. Never mind the weather!

Meanwhile, while I was eating pasties and ice cream on Sennen beach near Land’s End, my glamorous sister-in-law was on holiday in New York. Yes, she’s newly single, she’s still child-free, so she decided to book herself a glam singleton holiday to NYC.

Obviously, with the dollar on the skids, everything seemed incredibly good value and she had a very nice little shopping time to herself. Discount shoes, an adorable little Coach handbag and so on.

However, she did report back on a really quite terrifying trend. Every one in NYC carries a beautiful bag, OK, we expected that. In fact, we’d have been shocked if they didn’t, but, here is the but… despite the 35 degree heat, despite the bags and the manicured hands and the incredible designer clothes (smart, smart Prada skirts, nipped in blouses, groomed hair) guess what lots and lots of women were wearing on their feet? High Jimmys or Manolos, I hear you answer and I know, I’d have guessed the same. But no, apparently the coloured, patterned, mid-height Wellington seems to be the footwear of choice!!!! Bizarre!! Is it comfortable to walk about NY in mid-July in calf height wellies? Is it a status statement: I have a really big garden/ allotment/ home in the countryside. Well, whatever the reason… they’re definitely not wearing calf-length wellies for style.

I asked if she at least had a pic for me to post, but she said every time she saw one of these wellie-wearers walk past, she was so shocked, so stopped in her tracks by the sight that she never got it together to take a snap.

Being stared at in disapproval for your fashion faux pas reminds me of being in Paris, aged 19, inter-railing. I was probably wearing a t-shirt, grubby shorts and possibly even hiking boots. This chic Parisisan woman, walked towards me, in the typical Paris outfit of slick, skinny black, smooth hair, sunglasses, and just gave me this look. Her eyes travelled right up and down me and then her face registered this pinched look of horror – making me feel about two inches high.

The last time I was in the south of France, I thought the French women looked a bit frumpy to be honest. All that striped blue and white top business. I mean, it’s quite cute when you’re under ten as holiday wear, but come on!

In the morning, the wind was bitingly cold and we stood in the grey water forlornly casting, casting and casting again. By the way, casting – flicking the line into the water and pulling it back – is really hard work and I’d thought we’d just be standing about holding our rods in the water… but I still got so cold that when I embedded a fish hook in my finger, I didn’t even notice.

We broke early for lunch, huddled round an Aga and got some feeling back in our toes, before setting off out again.

This time, the sun broke through the clouds, light danced on the blue water and suddenly every view around us looked stunning. Even the prospect of going home without any fish didn’t seem bad, because we’d had such a great day outdoors.

Then, just as we were about to pack up, Claudie’s line began to twitch! With some help, she reeled her little trout in and didn’t have any qualms about bashing his head and taking him home in a plastic bag for breakfast. Poor Sam just about died of envy!

And just to prove what I was writing about last time (Claudie’s spooky sense of style), her fishing outfit which she chose then laid out on her bed for me to pack included co-ordinating pants and a leather hat which she got from the dressing up box. She wore these all day along with her sunglasses, making her the coolest chic on the loch. Although Sam’s slightly serial killer get up of combat jacket, aviator shades and baseball hat came a very close second.

All I can say about myself is that duvet coat with a life jacket? Well, it’s never going to be a good combo now, is it?