We have finally reached the last day of 2020, and what a year it has been! I don’t think any of us had any idea back in January what kind of year it would be; a global pandemic wasn’t something that any of could have predicted!

Like everyone else in the country, 2020 was the year of cancelled plans and staying at home. And although we’ve had times when we’ve been fed up, getting on each others nerves and generally wishing we could get out of the house and life could get back to normal, on the whole I think we have been very fortunate in how 2020 has treated us.

One thing that has suffered this year though is my blog! With nowhere to go and nothing to do except stay at home, I haven’t had much to write about and my motivation to think of anything went out of the window. I have kept up my weekly Living Arrows posts but not a lot else.

I’ve definitely been slacking on these monthly Me & Mine posts – I only posted six this year instead of my usual twelve. I’m not going to beat myself up though – if nothing else 2020 has been the year of being kind to ourselves and letting the unnecessary guilt go.

So anyway, to December. I’m glad the boys were both able to stay in school until the end of term. Even though our home schooling earlier in the year was relatively successful, I think we’ve all realised how much Toby and Gabe thrive in school and how much them being there is better for everyone’s mental health.

It wasn’t the usual run up to Christmas with no nativity or carol concert and no Christmas Fair. Somehow or other though the boys’ headteacher managed to arrange a visit from Father Christmas, in a helicopter! I was asked to go and help as it involved taking the whole school out to a field across the road and it was wonderful to see all the children so excited (and very noisy!)

Although we were in Tier 3 for Christmas we were still able to have a fairly normal Christmas Day. My brother lives on his own so was able to form a support bubble with us so he could come and stay for a couple of nights, and my mum and dad came for Christmas dinner. We managed to see Barry’s mum and dad very briefly earlier in the week when we did a doorstop present drop off.

We’ve hardly left the house since the boys broke up from school, but I did drag them away from their video games for a walk the other day. It had been raining and windy for days but we did get one nice day before it got really cold (no snow here though). I’m glad we took advantage of it to get out for an hour at least!

In this last Me & Mine post of the year I usually share a collage of all 12 family pictures from the year. I might only have six pictures this year but I didn’t want to break with tradition so here we are…

So there we have. 2020 is done and we’re all still smiling, just about. Here’s hoping 2021 is a better year for everyone!

This is my seventh year of taking Me & Mine family portraits. You can see all the rest of the posts here.