Anyone else with Christmas plans in the UK feeling jittery?

[QuentininQuarantino]

Last year's Christmas was awful, stuck alone in our host country which was in lockdown. Especially as we only cancelled our UK trip a couple of weeks in advance.

Now it feels a bit like history repeating itself. Most of the presents for the DC are at my parents house in the UK (really specific things that can't be bought here from the letter to father christmas!) and the DC are so excited.

(Also, thanks to fucking Brexit, we have told everyone to post everything to my parents house because of the huge import charges we keep getting stung with.)

We're only over the channel in France, and I keep telling myself its only 3/4 weeks to go.. but I've got that dreadful pit-of-the-stomach feeling.

Anyone else? Fancy some mutual support?

Yes, am freaking out. It sounds like me and @Tropicalsquirrel are in the same small country, and I've already basically convinced myself that they're going to shut the borders again, or bring back two weeks expensive hotel quarantine. We did it in August, I can't do two weeks again. Plus it would take up so much of the holiday that it won't be worth travelling.
We have tickets, accommodation and everything else booked between an EU country and the UK for three weeks in dec/jan, to see both our families for the first time in two years. I just can't see one of the three countries not cracking down somewhere, so have pretty much resigned myself to something or the whole trip getting cancelled. I'm feeling pretty down today.

In August, I booked tickets for an event in London between Christmas and New Year.. thinking it would all be OK by then but fearing the worst. Friends who lived to Australia 10 years ago are coming back to celebrate their 50th in London in January. We were hoping to make it to the party from France.. looking unlikely right now.

@KonTikki

I have been abroad from the UK every summer for several months since the pandemic started. But I have accepted that winter travel, crossing international boundaries, is going to be too restrictive for possibly years to come. Christmas is a date in a calender, I have been forced to accept working around it.

Goodness, I do wish my seven year old who desperately misses his family could have such a stoical and practical attitude!

But dramatical child that he is, he probably wouldn’t be totally cool with Santa having accidentally left his presents somewhere else and he can have them if and when Boris&co feel like he, who has been wearing masks at school and distancing for more than a year, is no longer a threat to Freedom Day England!

(Yes it IS my fault for not being pessimistic from the start, but it doesn’t make it any less shit and we are allowed to worry and feel crap about it!)

And my mother has been in hospital in Ireland for 3 months now! I saw her twice in September but she hasn't been allowed visitors for over 4 weeks now. I was hoping she would be moved to a rehab hospital where I could visit her in the next few weeks... but that is looking increasingly unlikely.

www.rte.ie/news/2021/1128/1263589-coronavirus-uk/?fbclid=IwAR0RzbJqaXrIND3HbwGpO1LyfQIuRNqvSXCIqgIljJllirczg5nFB6qoZ7Q
Just in case this brings a little comfort to those of us awaiting arrivals from Ireland for Christmas.
@QuentininQuarantino tell your drama llama son (aka small child whose spirit has yet to be completely crushed by this pandemic) to belt up!
Honestly some people have no understanding and I really pray for all of us that have been without our family for so long that we are reunited this Christmas.

I'm supposed to be flying back with DD (6m) from on the 10th for the weekend for my DGM's 100th, then again with DD and DH for Christmas. I'm not sure I'll be able to get a PCR result in time for the birthday event, and now Spain are saying no unvaccinated travellers from UK so not sure where that leaves DD. Presumably she's exempt due to age and being a Spanish citizen and resident, but unclear at the moment. I feel sick. I haven't seen my family in 2 years, my parents have never met their granddaughter. I know there are people who have suffered much more than us over the past 2 years, but I'm just so sad after getting my hopes up. It's pathetic but I feel like a little kid being separated from its parents.

OP I am not sure why you are blaming 'Boris&Co' they are hardly responsible for the virus!

Secondly you know we are in a pandemic, so I am not sure why you have organised your presents in the way you have. If the gifts are unavailable in France, which I find hard to believe then perhaps by your son French toys instead?! You are a few short miles across the channel, and many of us that have family in NZ have no chance whatsoever and haven't at any point. You are making a massive drama out of nothing. If you are that worried ask your mother to post the presents to you ffs.
I appreciate the new variant is not the best news, but christmas is a feeling not a date, and can be recreated at Easter/spring/etc

**buy

@Fairylights25... this is not AIBU... this is Living Overseas.. I left home 30 years ago and have lived in the different countries since then. My life as a migrant still involves frequent visits home and to the country where my DH is from and where the children were born.

It might be hard for you to understand why the OP made the choices she did and why she feels like.she does right now.

I suspect that the OP and many others on this thread just popped in for a bit of tea and sympathy with other migrants who understand and not to be told 'worse things happen at sea' and just get on with it.

There is space for a bit of compassion even if not understanding.

Merry Christmas to you too, @Fairylights25 peace and joy and goodwill and all that.

In Europe we’ve maintained measures this whole time while boris&co promised nobody in England had to bother with the virus anymore. Can’t you understand how it stings a tad that sajid is promising Xmas as normal whilst we’re having to plan for the worst? If not then this isn’t the thread for you really - it’s a support thread for people who are disappointed and anxious for two years running, all over the world.

Thank you for your “helpful” suggestions - but they don’t work for us (I’m not sharing my Xmas plans on the internet you’ll just have to take my word for it).

Merry christmas, Fairylights25! Jeez.
There's yet another story in the newspapers today about packages not getting in to the EU or incurring huge amounts of paperwork or taxes. The last few things that I had sent to me in my last EU country in August meant I had to drive to a sorting office over an hour away, and wait up to five hours for those packages, not knowing what they were. I then had to pay around 35 euros for the priviledge of recieving charity-shop nonsense my family had sent. So the OPs christmas plans seem pretty sensible to me!
Hugs to everyone potentially affected, I am desperate to see my family this christmas for the first time in two years and feel very deflated by yesterday's news.

@Fairylights25 I'm in a similar position to the OP, so I'm clearly an idiot too. Thanks for helping me to see the light

Op I am delighted, as someone that lives in England that Boris took the right decision for our nation and choose the summer months to ease restrictions, it was a very good call and as a result we are in a better position than we otherwise would have been. It annoys me when you bleat how annoying it is, when you don't even live here.
We have had a brilliant and autumn summer which was very much needed by all, and it has helped people's mental health and the children of this country no end. Along with a booster programme that is really motoring through everyone. You always seem so down on the UK despite having family here, and I don't like it. Your comments come across as quite bitter.

Of course I am sad for those countries that did not this, and instead are facing a really tough winter with tons of restrictions and lockdowns, but many in Europe were pretty offensive at the time calling us 'plague island' and guffawing at our apparent 'stupidity'. So my sympathy is somewhat limited by the unkindness that has been on display for months, and the disgraceful and dangerous comments made by EU leaders about the AZ vaccine which only served to damage their own populations.

Given you are only a short distance away op I still think you are likely to be fine, I hope the UK will ride out the winter and we will soon be into spring as continent with better times ahead. I hope you manage to get home.

Geez read the room!!!

Are you this welcome everywhere you share your infinite wisdom or are we just lucky!?

You read the room op. Your comments are tone deaf.

There are people here that are now having to go back into isolation for the whole winter as they are CEV and can't risk catching the covid.

People en route facing 10 days of quarantine in a hotel at a huge cost through no fault of their own.

We have all collectively lost so many people to covid across the globe, and many more suffering such as my cousin who is now permanently disabled and unable to even shower himself at 42 after nearly dying from covid, and yet YOU feel entitled to moan endlessly about Boris and his decisions and the small problem of posting out your son's presents worst case.

You have the option to see your family right now, you can hop on a plane/train/ferry and will almost certainly be able to visit easily and return home. You are just choosing not to.

Seriously get a grip, and take your own advice.

You’re not the only one who has victims of this @Fairylights25 and don’t you dare try to presume anything about me or anyone else for that matter. Have a think about why some people might want to be with family, ffs.

Other posters - if I am tone deaf and you find fairlylights contributions super helpful - do speak up!?

I hear you OP.

We haven’t been back to the UK for nearly 3 years and haven’t seen my parents since they visited us in summer 2019. They’re both 80 next year.

We have flights booked for 21st and I am really crossing everything that we can go.

Also, I think this is absolutely the corner of MN to offload about these worries. I’m pretty sure most expat families would feel the same, especially those of us who haven’t seen family for so long (and have children who are fast growing up).

I dislike Boris intensely but he can’t win.

When we didn’t lock down sooner he was criticised, now he’s reacting quickly he should be thinking of the Christmas plans of others.

You know we didn’t start the new variant. And Europe have higher rates and lower vaccination rates.

@QuentininQuarantino I agee with you. This thread is about people in a similar situation worrying this might be the second Christmas spent apart. I'm not saying restrictions aren't required and we also know people who have suffered and died from Covid. I'm not criticising the UK government but all governments seem to confound families being together with people going on holiday.

I hear you too OP.
If you live abroad or have family living abroad it brings a whole load of new challenges. People who are not in that situation just don't understand.
There's no point on shouting "We are in a pandemic" at us.
Lots of workers in the NHS are from overseas and have returned to their own countries too at various points to reunite with their own families.
A day with family may seem trivial to some. The special gifts carefully selected with love might seem replaceable. The trip to the theatre rebookable. But they are all a symbol of home.
We've spent the pandemic living in a country that isn't truly our own (I've been away ten years but i will still always be a foreigner). We could have never broken lockdown rules to visit a dying relative even if we had wanted to. And we have to check the news in multiple languages to understand what a new variant means for us, with an additional set of complex politics.
Of course lots of people have a set of circumstances that make the pandemic difficult for them. A person suffering with depression. A parent of a neuro divergent child. Suffering from a medical condition. Working in retail. Being on furlough etc.
I'd never jump on their threads and just tell them to get on with it or suck it up.
This room is for people who are missing their overseas families and are worried about their plans being canceled.
And if there were a thread for people with 5* spa holidays in the Maldives booked, moaning about maybe not getting their fresh lobster dinner for Christmas or whatever, I would allow them their space to moan.

Fancy some mutual support?

@Fairylights25 which bit of this very short sentence in the OP did you not understand?

You clearly have no idea of the logistics of planning a Christmas trip to the UK or the changes to delivery charges post Brexit meaning that it is simpler and cheaper to get things delivered to a UK address.

If you don't have any mutual support to offer then go and piss on someone else's chips.

Bravo @Tobchette sums it up for all of us expats.Thanks for the thread OP, I hear you.

@Fairylights25
I agree with you and am not looking forward to the Christmas travel headfuckery.

But it's a good thing the UK government are reacting like this to the new variant, they would get slated if they didnt.

People in the UK are lucky, they have international travel annoyance but quite a lot of freedom. Where I am travel is more relaxed but everyday life is more restrictive. I prefer the UK approach.

@Tobchette

I hear you too OP. If you live abroad or have family living abroad it brings a whole load of new challenges. People who are not in that situation just don't understand. There's no point on shouting "We are in a pandemic" at us. Lots of workers in the NHS are from overseas and have returned to their own countries too at various points to reunite with their own families. A day with family may seem trivial to some. The special gifts carefully selected with love might seem replaceable. The trip to the theatre rebookable. But they are all a symbol of home. We've spent the pandemic living in a country that isn't truly our own (I've been away ten years but i will still always be a foreigner). We could have never broken lockdown rules to visit a dying relative even if we had wanted to. And we have to check the news in multiple languages to understand what a new variant means for us, with an additional set of complex politics. Of course lots of people have a set of circumstances that make the pandemic difficult for them. A person suffering with depression. A parent of a neuro divergent child. Suffering from a medical condition. Working in retail. Being on furlough etc. I'd never jump on their threads and just tell them to get on with it or suck it up. This room is for people who are missing their overseas families and are worried about their plans being canceled. And if there were a thread for people with 5* spa holidays in the Maldives booked, moaning about maybe not getting their fresh lobster dinner for Christmas or whatever, I would allow them their space to moan.

100% it’s also the uncertainty. We can’t just jump in the car. Im so fed up of all of this.

Also some of us are not overseas for a laugh. Some of us have been sent by a government. I really feel like we've had the crap end of the stick because we came to this assignment just as the UK winter lockdown was ending- only to be in various lockdowns and curfews until September.

But yeah anyway I'll just tell the kids to be more stoic. They're 7 and 5 so totally big enough to get it.