To be in a bit of a panic about building work over Christmas

[farewellfigure]

We've been in this house for over 5 years and finally we're getting to the stage where we a. have the plans we want, and b. have found a builder with a quote we can afford to turn this house into the house we always imagined it could be. We're really excited. But, he can start mid November and it will take 8 weeks. DH, DS and I will be confined to two downstairs rooms. One will be DS's bedroom, and the other will have to have our bed, the TV, a makeshift kitchen (microwave, kettle, washing up bowl, fridge) and somewhere to sit and eat. The builder is next available in June. I want it done after waiting for so long, but am in a total panic about Christmas. We should postpone shouldn't we?

Where on earth are we going to put the Christmas tree? We're away for Christmas day and Boxing day but I'm just so sad about missing the twinkling lights, putting the decs up, and even more importantly, where on earth am I going to wrap presents? Where are we going to HIDE presents that we don't want DS to see? I know we can decorate the two rooms, but it just won't be the same. DS will see it as a huge adventure, which is great but my sensible head just tells me to postpone. Please tell me to just go for it, that I'm being silly, and that it will all be fine!

Can't you stay at family's for Christmas itself, maybe they would even store DS's presents there until the day itself for you if they have room? I'd want to get the work over and done with.

Go for it! It's only one year and it'll be 'D'you remember that Christmas when we were having the house done?'
With hiding Christmas presents, is there someone you can ask to keep them for you? I remember storing a couple of laptops for a friend one year when she didn't want her teenagers to find them. Her DH called round late on Christmas Eve to pick them up.

We did this. Building work was originally set to go on until mid January but due to an especially clement winter they were able to finish right before Christmas (2 days before!).

We were desperate to get the work done and resigned ourselves to Christmas being a mess. And it WAS fairly horrible!

We didn't have as much work as it sounds like you're having - we just had a single story extension and some minor rejigging of existing rooms. It permeated the whole house though - the upsatirs bathroom needed redoing as some of the pipes had been moved, back bedroom needed decorating as they'd had to take out some bricks from beneath the window. The hall and other downstairs rooms were coated with dust and needed repainting. The garden was a mud bath. We had dust everywhere - I remember wiping dust off the baubles and blowing dust off mince pies. But. I'm glad we did it then. We had time off over Christmas that we could do some decorating in. Then we started on repairing the garden so it was nice again for spring and summer.

That said, you sound like you will have far less useable space than we did. I'd be really torn. Our house was a complete mess all over Christmas, but it was done.

Hm, the family live too far away for us to stay there the whole time but we could be there for maybe 4 days. Christmas Day and Boxing Day themselves will be fine.

We had a house done up 10 or so years ago and I remember feeling as though everywhere was gritty and dusty. Even the rooms that weren't being 'done'. I remember feeling like even the bed was full of dust, under the duvet! We thought it was fun having no running water etc but I don't relish going through it all again with a 6yr old!

I could ask local friends to hide any big presents. Or you're right... I could get stuff delivered to family and wrap it on Christmas Eve.

Last year we had a power cut on Christmas Eve morning and it didn't come on again until 6pm. That was the year 'we thought we were going to be cooking the Turkey on the wood burning stove'. I guess it's fun to make Christmasses memorable!