Postponing Christmas

You don't need to do much digging to find out that I am big into Christmas. I love the lights and decorations and buying presents for other people. I love seeing family all together because its rare that all of us are in the one place these days. I have always been home for Christmas and most years I have been home at some point Christmas Eve. This is my second year working in a Social Care job so it should come as no surprise that this year I will be working over Christmas. 

 That's not the worst part of this story. Not only am I working for Christmas but I am working nights over Christmas. For lots of people this would not be a huge issue because they could get by on a few hours sleep and salvage the rest of the day but I am not one of those people. Anyone who has read my blog posts from long ago (well over a year ago) will be well aware that I am afflicted with something I like to call marshmallow brain after waking nights. I need loads of sleep but I can never get enough and when I do wake I am fuzzy and incoherent. There are few intelligible sentences and possibly some crying. 
I got offered more regular hours in work with the caveat that I also have to my fair share of nights, that being a month every three to four months. I readily agreed as the uncertainty of relief hours was not something I was coping well with. I quickly determined I would be starting my nights on the 19th December (two weeks time, not that I am counting) and that meant I would be working the weekend 23/24/25 and I have been adjusting to this fact ever since.

 Here lies my quandary, I am working Christmas Eve so I could go to my parents place on Christmas day but I will be like a zombie. Their house will be super noisy so there is not a hope in hell that I would get any sleep. Now I would suck it up and nap later in the day if it wasn't for the fact that I am also working Christmas night so I'd need to be in a fit state to drive to work and also survive my third night shift in a row. After much thought and general feeling sorry for myself I have made a decision to postpone Christmas. I will get some sleep and have a mini Christmas with the boyfriend. If I am up to sentences I might even ring the family. We'll have a sort of Christmas dinner, exchange gifts and maybe watch a Christmas movie. He'll head out to friends as I go to work and then on Stephens day Ill drive down when I finish my shift and soldier through as much of the day as I can. I don't know will it be postponing Christmas or extending it but I may as well get used to the idea. I plan on extending my career in social care and working the days no one else does comes as part of the package 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sometimes I open my mouth and my mother comes out ..

Image
I have been told on more than one occasion that I'm sarcastic. Often that I'm too sarcastic (as though there could be such a thing) and I have retort up my sleeve for such occasions which is if you think I'm sarcastic you should meet my mother. No, really you should because my sarcasm is but a pale imitation of hers. Every so often though I come out without something that makes my friends or other family members pause because sometimes when I open my mouth, my mother comes out.  It's funny how people always take the words you are turning into your mother as such an insult because the reality of the matter is it's a both a good and bad thing. Obviously there are certain qualities I am perfectly happy to emulate and others not so much and on the whole I am not entirely sure how much control I have over it. It's not quite a pick and mix counter here. I think there are some habits you are not even aware you have picked up until someone else kindly points it out....
Read more

How long does it take to learn to drive?

Image
I remember my nieces a year or so back asking me in an incredulous tone how long it takes to learn to drive because for as long as they could remember I had L plates on my car. The answer in my case is four years. Admittedly I probably could have gotten my full licence sooner if I hadn't been so hesitant to do my test in the three years that have passed since my last attempt. I get very anxious during tests or Interviews and so do not perform particularly well at either. I will put that in my list of things I need to work on in the new year. In time since I have learned to drive I feel I have accomplished a lot and yet I will go out of my way to avoid having to parallel park because I feel like its always going to be my Achilles heel. At least I have come a long way from the days when I used to feel anxious about getting into my car and was likely to bunny hop across roundabouts in third gear. The problem with learning to drive is that the older you do the harder it is and...
Read more

Burnout: the sequel

Image
  I am burnt out. Hardly the most shocking declaration given I have been saying it out loud for a while now but here we are. This isn't my first run in with burn out nor will it likely be my last. Not only am I working in a stressful job, a social care worker in residential care, which is no stranger to burn out but also I am autistic so its like I know a secret short cut to getting there. I think as bragging goes this is up there with declaring how many times I have managed to catch covid. Which is 4 at my current count and they say there are no benefits to working in Health care. If you are lucky enough to not have experienced burnout then I can tell you its not an experience I would recommend to a friend. If you have friends working in social care then you probably wont need to.  Some of the things I have been experiencing are random bouts of crying. Given high sensitivity is part of my autism profile, I am no stranger to crying and the first time I experienced burnout it t...
Read more