DEMENTIA CARE: CHRISTMAS RUSH.

There’s a thing that happens in the streets around this time of year. Not this exact time of year. Around. And the aroundness of the event is becoming arounder and arounder-er as time passes. The thing? Christmas decorations go up in gardens. Those twinkly outdoor lights. The neon Santas pop up. Glowing icicles dangle from those rooftops, mimicking the real thing rather badly on three fronts.
   One. These icicles glow, obviously.
   Two. These icicles sway alarmingly in high winds.
   Three. These fake icicles appear in winter with stunning regularity. And that’s something the real icicles don’t do – they appear infrequently, instead. The winters are rainy. Occasionally frosty. Rarely snowy.
   There are rules to decoration. Christmas baubles, bangles, and beads may appear in shops on the first of November. Sell no Christmas decorations before Hallowe’en decorations. It is the law. For a shop to sell Christmas decorations in September…why, that’s madness. Utter madness.
   So much for retail.
   There are people who want Christmas really really really early in the garden, with their storm-proof lights and flashing reindeer shapes. There was one major offender. First of November, no fucks given, time for the Christmas rush. Up go the garden lights and the hell with the rest of you.
   Am I one to criticise?
   Clearly.
   As a carer, though, what have I been doing to avoid the Christmas rush? With extra slots opened up for supermarket delivery, I spent time making order after order so I wouldn’t lose a weekly slot. Closer to delivery, I’d go back in and tailor each order to that week’s requirements. A digital supermarket trolley dash.
   But making a generic order at least put us in the queue.
   Not good enough. Trust me. So, yes, I started Christmas shopping in October. Cans. Jars. Bottles. Ice cream. Stuff that will keep in the freezer, or in the cupboard. Even some of the fresh stuff can be frozen, too, but I waited for December for that tidy bit of stockpiling. I laid in supplies for the winter, as if the supermarket didn’t exist. And I used the supermarket to do it.
   Result? Shopping bills, already increased by inflation, shot up. But the shopping bill for the Christmas food supply is always larger. I just moved it to earlier in the year, for convenience. A technological computer-assisted squirrel, laying down essential stores.
   The other result? Shopping bills at Christmas are going to fall. I’ve already bought everything in. Do I begrudge these early adopters their garden lights in November? It skews my calendar when I look out into the night. Other than that, they can do what the hell they want.
   Some people, for reasons known and unknown, skip Christmas every bloody year. (This means they might be skipping it from late September.) It clearly isn’t a good time for them. They are caught up in the Christmas rush of others, damn the fools, and the weather is set dead against them. They just want to get home and slam the door on the world. And they don’t care for the baubles, bangles, or beads.
   Here, Christmas is just another day in the life of a carer. I’ve shopped my Christmas dinner, with the last ingredients bought in December and frozen for now. Just another day? I try to make it festive. Carers will come in, as usual. Someone has to take the Christmas day shift. And there’s a shift at night, as well. That’s a first for the time of year.
   There are no days off here, not really. But I make time for myself as a carer. You have to. Or you couldn’t be a carer. I rushed around, very gradually, this year, making sure essential supplies were handy. Are essential supplies also Christmas supplies?
   It’s the winter I like…and the “winter” food I don’t have at any other time of year. Oh, I could have this stuff month by month, at any old time. Then, it wouldn’t be special…and I would weigh a hell of a lot more.
   Christmas? Not exactly. But there’s a bite to the air. A glorious darkness in the day. Frosty cobwebs scatter wild sparkles at you. Ice cracks underfoot in puddles that stopped being puddles overnight. Wind gnaws at your face. And the rain is just that bit rainier. So the autumnal food comes in, and the winter meals…
   Heavy soup. Roast potatoes. Those things are fuel for the boiler, coals on the engine fire, to see you through the stark shimmering landscape where the steam train’s clouds are puffs of breath from your own mouth.
   Still, all the usual stuff goes on. And that’s why this particular post was delayed. Speaking of delayed post, I anticipate an avalanche of cards and parcels in early January. Persistent strike action coupled with the festive flood of parcels shows me…
   One Christmas card that arrived by letterbox. At the airport in my mind, parcels are circulating over the runway, waiting to land. I see tracking messages for parcels that took hardly any time to cross the waters from America, from Australia, only to bog down at a depot for the rest of the winter.
   Oh, they have my parcel. It’s just at the back. Of the back. At the rear. Of the arse-end of the beyond. Behind the wall, out in the cold somewhere. Luckily, medical supplies are not affected by this.
   There are slight delays in prescription deliveries. Covid. Pressure on the system in winter. As I type this, the week of frost has thawed out. But everyone was feeling the ice and hoping for the arrival of the gritter. It all takes a little bit longer when the hard ground turns slippery.
   For the first time, I really made heavy use of the salt-spreading gadget. More for the incoming care team…they all said I was the only one who did that for them. I keep the house going in winter.
   There was one horror story of another person being cared for…they never give details for legal reasons of privacy. But they pass on news of importance if it helps out with safety elsewhere.
   Man had frozen pipes. His shower stopped. And his hot water tap was gone. The cold water tap in his kitchen survived, and they kettled up a supply to see him through bathing. They left there knowing a plumber was on the way.
   This was a public service announcement to remind us to check our heating. I have a handy electronic albatross hanging around my neck, telling me the daily cost of heating and lighting the house. We have government assistance to counter the measurement spinning around so fast it might make the planet wobble on its axis.
   The carers who come in…don’t have that level of government assistance, and they are all feeling the financial heat of fighting the cold. That frosty patch lasted just this side of eternity.
   Now we are into the standard territory of rain, rain, and more rain, just above freezing. The gritters have vanished from the streets once more. December weather be a-Decembering. I may need a second tub of salt for my handy salt-spreading gadget. Something to consider for next year. But something I’ll buy long before next winter, obviously.
   And now? The last-minute Christmas rush. Everything is ready. More or less. There are no days off in the land of the carer, and Christmas truly is just another day. But I’ve avoided the rush to give myself a Christmas treat. And that’s the dinner to end all dinners.
   I keep part of the dinner ritual alive, but I vary the ingredients every year. Keep putting my own spin on that. Once you are down to a liquid diet, with supplements, there isn’t much to do to keep your meal Christmassy. But for me, the carer…
   Yes, I need to keep the tradition of the big winter meal alive. Last Christmas…insert joke about George Michael here…last Christmas, I had a meal in the company of a friend across the internet so that we wouldn’t risk Covid…
   This year, I might have drinks with friends if everyone can make it through the digital door out of the digital cold. I rarely drink alcohol, given what I do, so that’s responsible drinking of low-level booze on top of a hefty meal, with plenty of snacks available if my crippled stomach has the room.
   Even that Covid-free computerised event has been set in advance. Avoid the Christmas rush if you can. Arrange arrangements by arrangement in a pre-arrangement that avoids derangement and derailment.
   Will I rush around on the day? Fuck, I hope not. I shouldn’t be rushing around in the week leading up to and away from the event. There’ll be the tricky wait for prescriptions going into the New Year. Can’t help the timing of that order. Some things just fall onto the table that way and you have to play them out in awkward silence.
   There won’t be awkward silence, though. The security alarm plays festive music when carers step through the door.