Is getting a sponsor in Debtors Anonymous the next step for my night-time shopping sprees?

With a small hallway full of unopened parcels, including cordless hoovers, gold shoes and tons of toys, is Charlotte Cripps overcompensating because she cancelled the Christmas holiday?

(Illustration by Amara May)

Lola has now accepted that she’s been downgraded from angel to humble sheep. I bought her a fabulous white cape with woolly ears and told her it was one of life’s lessons. “If life throws lemons, you make lemonade, and if you’re a sheep, not an angel, you’ve got to be the best nativity sheep there ever was.”  

I’ve also cancelled my trip to Dubai for Christmas; it’s too risky to take my dad, 88. He’s a liability: he huffs and puffs if I hand him hand gel and ends up with his mask covering his eyes.  It’s hard enough travelling with him and the kids without a pandemic; this might finish me off.  

I knew it was time to pull the plug when my dad said to me: “What if they test us again at Dubai airport and we are positive, then we have to spend the whole holiday isolating in our rooms? What a waste of money.” Seriously, that would be a good outcome. I’m more worried about him being stuck on a ventilator in a hospital.