So here we are. The last Living Arrows post of 2020. When I wrote my first post of the year back in January, like the rest of us, I had no idea what was to come. It has been a terrible year for so many people and I feel incredibly fortunate that we have got through it with our health and sanity more or less intact.

I know of course that tens of thousands of people have not been so lucky and my thoughts regularly return to all those people whose lives have been devastated by Covid. I’m sure we’ve still got tough times ahead of us but like I said last week, it is starting to feel like there is a light at the end of this very long tunnel and we can start thinking about the future with a tiny bit of positivity.

We were able to have something resembling a normal Christmas Day here at least. We formed a support bubble with my brother (as he lives alone and hadn’t been anywhere since breaking up from school the week before) so he could come and stay on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and then my parents just came round for Christmas dinner. We had windows open the whole time and kept our distance as best we could too but it was lovely to all be sat round the table together for the first time in nearly a year.

The boys had a great day, opening all their presents and playing with new toys. All Gabe actually asked for was a Mario game for the Switch, Rainbow bath bombs and socks so he was very happy to get all of those! We got him quite a few other things too – one of which was a kitchen knife and peeler set all of his own. He often asks to help me with cooking but there wasn’t much he could do without lots of supervision.

He did a great job of peeling all the parsnips on Christmas day, and this was him chopping some peppers yesterday. Of course, it was still much slower than I could have done it myself but at least he can actually help and do something useful now.

Toby got pretty much everything he had asked for too. He’s getting so grown up now that he didn’t really get many ‘toys’ but he did get another Switch game and then all sorts of sciencey type things to play and experiment with.

I usually only share one picture of each of the boys in these posts but I’ve got an extra one of them together this week. This was on Christmas Eve in their new pyjamas just after they’d put a whisky and mince pie out for Father Christmas and a carrot for Rudolf of course!

I’m happy to report that after Toby questioning the existence of Father Christmas back at the start of December, he decided a few weeks later that he did exist after all, and happily went along with the magic for another year!

I hope you all managed to have an enjoyable Christmas even if it was different from normal and perhaps not what you had planned or hoped for. I’ll be back next week with my first Living Arrows post of 2021 and the start of my eighth year of sharing these weekly pictures.

This is my ninth year taking part in this linky celebrating childhood, based on a poem by Kahlil Gibran, “You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth” .

If you’d like to see the rest of my Living Arrows posts you can find them all here.