“Sure, it’s practically Christmas, now,” I said to himself as we put away the Easter tree. “Before you know it, they’ll be announcing the celebrities for this year’s Strictly Come Dancing and us without as little as a day’s summer holiday booked.”
Before I lose you all with mention of an Easter tree, allow me to defend my life choices. She who can be heard roaring in Sligo dare someone turn on the big light in the sittingroom, quite likes the soft, cheery, atmospheric glow of fairy lights. Keeping your Christmas tree up half the year is generally frowned upon, unless you’re in the middle of a pandemic. So, here we are with a two-foot alternative that moves easily from the hall table to double as an ideal dinner table centrepiece.
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But back to the fact that the year’s almost over. Or at least that’s how it feels with a heavy schedule of milestones rapidly approaching, and seemingly endless obstacles to booking a holiday.
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The first is the obvious cost and my indecisiveness over which vital organ I’d be prepared to sell in order to afford a break. But even if I could settle on this issue, there are other hurdles in my way. I’ll be honest, I would have no qualms whatsoever about taking the kids out of school for a few days’ holidays, in the interest of making it more affordable. I could trot out the usual “travel broadens the mind/is an education blah, blah, blah” platitudes but, from past experience, I’m not sure that a water park in Tenerife counts. Though the game of water polo at the hotel, where my team, (which included me, and two primary-school-aged children) was beaten by a group of 20-something-year-old English lads, to a celebratory chorus of “c’mon Brexit” was perhaps a lesson in how not to conduct in-pool diplomatic relations when holidaying in Europe.
So, there was that, in fairness.
Alas, term time holidays are off the table thanks to the pesky older ones having, rather inconveniently, some somewhat important stuff on. Once again, the State exams are showing absolutely no regard whatsoever for my unmade summer plans. And as a fellow Leaving Cert parent put it, “it’s not as if you could even plan your own holidays for when the Leaving Cert-ers are on their post-Leaving Cert holiday. Because the only sane thing you can do at that time is sit at home, stalk their social media, repeatedly refresh their location online hoping they don’t cop it’s visible to you, and obsess relentlessly about their safety to the point of insanity, as the good Lord intended.” Or something along those lines.
And do you know it’s a pity really, because if that wasn’t the case, you could still just about beat the primary school holidays’ price jumps.
Still, holiday musings and meanderings aside, there is nothing quite like having a sixth year in the house to remind you just how quickly the years seem to go by when you’re living by the school calendar. “It’ll be easier when they’re in school”, we tell ourselves as when our babies and toddlers are in creche, and we’re feeling the crippling costs of childcare, but ignoring the very different challenges that school holidays bring.
It’ll be easier when they’re teenagers and self-sufficient, without any need for babysitters, we convince ourselves, when stressed with the juggle of camps and annual leave balancing for our primary schoolers, but ignoring that those teen years are rarely a walk in the park, and we can’t afford to be too unavailable, just because they’re taller than us now.
And sure look, the only thing that’s true really, as the juggle continues, is that it will be different. But all the while we’re waiting for it to be different, those years sneak by. And suddenly another one is close to finishing school forever.
One month to go. One month and the secondary schools will finish up for summer. Four weeks more and the primary schools will join them on their summer break. And then where will we be?
With one less child returning to school in September, that’s where. With one less uniform and one less lunch box and beaker to buy.
As the great philosopher, Ferris Bueller, once said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
