Will Christmas ever be the same?....

Here's a typical December diary from my last life:

2nd - Sporting dinner in the evening

6th - client lunch

7th - Tigers Luncheon club and Bizzfizz meeting involving Christmas celebrations

9th - City professionals Christmas lunch

15th - local Institute of Directors breakfast

15th - Solicitor's Christmas cocktails networking do

16th - staff/partners lunch

16th - Regional authority "business champions network" Christmas get together

19th - staff Christmas party

In between all of the frantic networking, clients all wanted to get their transactions and deals done before the Christmas break, so the run up to Christmas could at times be a nightmare.

Well its very different now. Christmas is very important time for us as the "virtual gifts" catalogue is a major fundraiser, and now is the time to start planning details for next year's programme...in between all those consultations I have already mentioned. So its busy. But not mad. And the only Christmas do I am going to is my own little team's tomorrow ...not forced on us as the office do which you have to go to whether you like it or not, and you need to get drunk at to make it endurable, but arranged because we enjoy working with each other and wanted to get together with some of our volunteers over a Christmas lunch. (And yes we will be paying for ourselves!)

This time last year I was also sitting on a few bottles of wine and whiskey, as well as countless diaries of all shapes and sizes which never got used. None of that this year ...we did get a modest Christmas bonus which was unanticipated. To be frank, I would happily have done without it and added up across the organization that could have saved a couple of the jobs being lost in these reviews!

I'll miss the boxes of nice wine though ....