Dreaming of a normal Christmas as new Covid variant rears its head - Ginny Sanderson

Never mind a white Christmas, I’m dreaming of an average one.

OK, my version is not as magical as the Bing Crosby bop, but – if anything – we’ve learned to lower our expectations in these past few years.

You can keep your snow. I will happily settle for a huge row as the Christmas dinner preparations crescendo. With relish will I embrace bizarre comments from relatives, and declarations of war over Harry Potter Cluedo.

As a new “super” variant rears its ugly head, I just hope we’ll be able to have a standard, unremarkable Christmas. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Last Christmas was, by all accounts, a flop. Like 2020, it shouldn’t count and we’re better off pretending it just didn’t happen.

As for snow, in Edinburgh we had heaps of it in February, in the midst of lockdown. Standing on an empty castle esplanade covered in snow was an oddly haunting experience.

Nicola Sturgeon has said there’s no need to hit a “panic button” over the new South Africa variant. I wish she had considered negation, because all many people will gauge from that sentence is “panic”.

But let’s hope our Christmas plans are not scuppered once again by this wretched virus.

For many it seems the festive fever has arrived early this year. Perhaps because we’re all clinging to any scrap of positivity we can find.

My Christmas tree has been up nearly a week, and I have no shame in admitting it. After all, the big day is less than a month away now.

As for Christmas shopping, it’s important to get things wrapped to put under the tree.

For presents, I’ve been trying to avoid big chains as much as possible and support local shops where I live in Edinburgh. There are so many little gems to choose from, and they are incredibly grateful for the support after the howler of a time they’ve had.

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