Freedom Friday – Out Out

As a stay-at-home-mum (SAHM) I don’t get out much. Gone are the days of getting sozzled at the Christmas work-do. No longer is advent one long hangover. So you can imagine my excitement at having the annual ‘Ladies Wot Lunch’ Christmas shindig. Starting at 2pm, I’m sure I will be propping open my eyelids with cocktail sticks by 8pm and slurring in to my Sauvignon. I’m a shadow of the party monster I once was.

It was not the best of nights with the Wrigglet, so I was beginning to doubt my freedom today. However, despite a sticky-eyed start to the day with a snotty, sad toddler, he chirped up with a dry bowl of weetabix. Dry. It is not my place to question why – you want them dry, you crack on my little lovely. This was served with a side of grated cheese. Yum – said no one, ever.

He accepted the nursery drop off though he wasn’t too enamoured with it. Mummy left with a slight spring in her step – today is on! Home I go to put the finishing touches to my costume. I say costume in the most liberal sense. Last year we had a theme of ‘Christmas Movies.’ Suspend your disbelief people – I went as Cameron Diaz in ‘The Holiday.’ I think the only similarity was the blonde wig. I’m not regularly stopped in the street, mistaken for Hollywood royalty. This year we have to attend as ‘something you’d find on a Christmas tree.’ I will reveal my outfit shortly.

This week’s Freedom Friday Top Three is dedicated to festive fizz and frolicks. The top three things that show mamma is going out out…

1. My Fitness Pal

Bear with me on this one. For the last few weeks I have been fully in the swing of Christmas as evidenced by my calorific intake. Shortbread. Custard. Quality Street. Cake. Gingerbread lattes. Anything with a red sugar or carb warning on the box has been good for me! Then I had the tell-tale warnings that I was on My Fitness Pal’s naughty list. I’d not tracked a single item of food in December. What was the point when a single meal would have demolished my daily allowance? There was an exponential decrease in my exercise output and the nail in the coffin was the necessity to use a shoe horn to do up my jeans.

However – this week it’s clear mamma is going out. There’s been four whole days of clean eating and maniacal treadmill work in the vain attempt to lose a couple of kilograms and not looked like an overstuffed sausage in my PVC skirt. Four days! That’s a lifetime when surrounded by all the glorious badness Christmas has to offer in the food cupboard. I deserve to have dropped at least three dress sizes. In reality, I’ll be squeezing myself in to the modern day version of a corset: Primark’s Bum & Tum control tights. Yep – I’m bringing sexy back. Muffin top anyone (it has to escape somewhere)?

2. Outfit Carnage

“I’ve got nothing to wear.” A common complaint over the years. But really, I have nothing to wear. My wardrobe is SAHM functional these days. It does not scream funtime, festive frolicks at you.

Having a theme should surely make it easier? The pre-married, pre-mum Karen would’ve got the glitter out, bared some flesh despite the cold and no doubt pirouetted in as a fairy on top of the tree. However – crafty SAHM Karen intends to cover up and embrace the papier-mâché. I have decided to go as a fairy light – by making a balloon-crafted bulb for my head. That’s it folks. Had I have had time, I would have wrapped myself in battery operated fairy lights and found some fairy wings but it was all I could do to get my Christmas cards out by the last postal deadline, so bulb head it is.

This will still require some clothing so I will spend the next two hours trying on every potential combination, creating a pile resembling a landfill site, only to opt for the first thing I tried on. Wardrobe carnage.

3. Hangover Preparation

I won’t lie. When I had Harry, my ability to down Disarrono till the early hours went out the window. Now, more than a sniff of Prosecco and it’s game over. The hangovers are like something from the depths of hell.

Today, I will pace myself. No really. I will drink lots of water. I will just have a few. I will not stagger back from the tube station like Eddie and Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous with a bottle in hand. I will not wake up resembling an extra from The Walking Dead.

To this end I have had a substantial breakfast. Shredded wheat with a side of almond croissant and a gingerbread latte chaser (today doesn’t count on My Fitness Pal of course). I have lined up a bottle of water by my bedside and the ibruprofen. Now it’s just to stick to my resolve and not become 90% Christmas spirit, 10% Christmas dinner.

Over and out out! As this is the last Freedom Friday before the big day I wish you all a peaceful and jolly Christmas. Cheers!