Page 145 of The Bad Mother's Diary

We got stuck in a tunnel for half an hour due to a fatality.

I know you should feel bad when someone dies on the train track, but … I mean, it’s pretty inconsiderate to kill yourself on Christmas Eve when people need to get home and wrap presents.

Daisy SCREAMED in the tunnel. No amount of cuddling or shushing would calm her down.

Everyone looked pretty annoyed, except one hippy man who said, ‘It’s okay. She’s just saying what we’re all thinking.’

Got home and realised I STILL had to wrap everything.

ARG!

It took an hour. Daisy kept trying to eat the sellotape.

Evening

The usual Duffy Christmas Eve tradition – glass of sherry while putting candles in the window for everyone we love who has passed away.

We all had a cry for my two Granddads, Aunty Karen, the baby Mum miscarried before she had Brandi and our old childhood dog, Pastry.

After that, we put Callum to bed 18 times. Getting him under the duvet was like trying to wrestle a puppy into one of those doggy outfits.

In the end, Mum had to sit on him until he fell asleep.

Friday December 25th

Christmas Day

Morning

Christmas DAAAAAAAY!!

Mum woke me up at 5am, wearing her Christmas elf pyjamas and singing ‘Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer’.

She’s always the first one awake. Then she gets grumpy, because we won’t let her open her presents until everyone else gets up.

Callum woke up next, delirious with happiness because his stocking was full of presents from Santa.

He kept saying, ‘I can’t believe it. I wasn’t a good boy at all.’

We all ended up opening our presents around the dining table, and eating smoked-salmon and cream cheese bagels amid a sea of wrapping paper.

Then we all watchedThe Snowman, and comforted Dad because he always cries at the end.

Afternoon

Leetlebit merry.

As Mum says, it wouldn’t be Christmas without a double Baileys.

Nearly phoned Nick this morning for Daisy’s sake. Spirit of Christmas and all that. But then I thought … well, he knows my number.

Then spent all morning feeling annoyed that he hadn’t called.

But Mum made everyone snowballs with her secret ingredient (two shots of vodka) and suddenly I didn’t care about Nick so much.

As usual, Dad did the Christmas dinner (Mum always gets too stressed and starts screeching at everyone to get out of her fucking kitchen).

At first he was humming ‘Joy to the World’, checking all his kitchen timers and sharpening his knives.

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