H and A have friends in their classes from the same family who do not have any belief in God, to such an extent that they are not allowed to go to assembly if God is mentioned, or to take part in the Christmas play. But, this really gets me, and I don't understand at all - please help. One of them was in the clarinet concert, but she wasn't allowed to play Jingle Bells. Jingle Bells has got so little to do with Jesus that it seems only to be a bizzare indictment of the state of the role of Christmas in society that to protect a child from exposure to the idea of God they can't play a tune that has words to do with sleigh rides. We had an interesting conversation at tea time today about belief, and how the idea of not believing is as ludicrous to us as probably the idea of having faith is to others when they look at us.

Meanwhile, the nativity play at Hamble went well in the end, with a star and a king who belted out their lines and everyone rose to the expectations of the director and did their best with their bit of the show. No disasters, no You've Been Framed moments with Mary and Joseph fighting over the baby or similar. Shame, a £500 bonus shared between all the staff is a great idea.

I went to Tescos tonight, sorry everyone, I rarely do it, and was in a bit of a stupor and found it so overwhelming it will be a while before I do it again. Did one of those shops I am so good at, where you spend £100 and come back and don't have anything to eat. The good thing to report was that there was no queue for the till. It was busy, but no queues. How do they do that?

I am avoiding thinking about Christmas, people who are more organised are sending cards and letters and photos of their family and I am just leaving them in a heap and hoping they go away. Have bought almost no presents, so if you don't get one, its not personal, no one did. Same with cards. In fact, assume you won't and here's a Happy Christmas. Its not like me, I am usually all bought and wrapped by end of November (as a child, I did my Christmas shopping at the scouts summer fete) so I have to blame the pressures of my job, or some other ill. Am hoping to find a great ski deal on Last minute.com which I can justify as being cheaper than staying at home. Might go on my own if necessary. Oh, I did buy and freeze the Chinese snacks and bought some chopsticks didn't I, so I am not so far behind after all. Wrapped up the Secret Santa presents for both R and I's work things. R always brings home some novelty shaped chocolate items, however much care he puts into choosing something thoughtful and nice for his person. So this year he assigned the job to me, and I had to choose for a 'middle aged female PE teacher'. Had a look at footballs, whistles and universal ball pump attachments, but went for a Christmas pudding which I hope will be both useful and hysterically funny in a post modern way. Worst case scenario she can let them use it for netball practise or whatever they do at big schools.