Sitting in work on the last day before the Christmas break. I'm struggling to keep myself motivated to do all the project documentation and planning work that I'm supposed to be doing. It's very quiet here and I'm trying hard not to count the minutes.

I'm in work throughout except for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day - although I do have a couple of days off planned for after the New Year.

I always find this time of year depressing. Everything plods slowly on and by the time the big day arrives you're pretty much tearing your hair out.

We haven't decided what to do with the kids presents as yet. There was a plan at one stage to unexpectedly drop them on the solstice, but we didn't go for it. The problem is that Jessica gets over excited. She basically doesn't sleep on Christmas Eve at all. I think last year she was up at 4am, but under strict orders not to wake anyone else until 6am, but of course you can hear her moving around etc.. And then she's as grumpy as hell for the rest of the day. It really takes the shine off to be honest. So we haven't ruled out giving them presents on Christmas Eve as a surprise. I'm not sure how things will go.

We've tried again not to do presents for the grown ups. Deb has made an agreement with her family that they only buy presents for the kids. It's easier for her because both her brother and sister have children. I find this really awkward with my family. I'm trying to convert to doing Oxfam Unwrapped, which is something I really like the idea of, but I don't seem able to get it right.

Back to writing my business case. Then the milestones. Then the recruitment schedule. Then the workflow plan. Yippee for Christmas.