It is almost Christmas, the shopping is done, the presents are wrapped, and all I have left to do is two weeks of ironing. This morning my husband grabbed a shirt from the pile, and wore it without being ironed. My upbringing was quite old-fashioned, and I spent a significant amount of time with older aunts and grandparents, who were fastidious in their homes, and ironed absolutely everything. One great aunt even swept the dirt path down to the letter box on the road. I learnt to iron at about the age of 7, and loved it! I ironed sheets and pillow slips, towels, underwear (including grandpa’s old-fashioned white boxers), tea towels, handkerchiefs, socks and everything else my mother or grandmother had in the pile. We used an old iron that had to be heated up on the wood stove, and it ironed things to a crispness that (weirdly?) I found enchanting. It seemed normal to me to iron everything. I still find it quite soothing and therapeutic, as it gives me time out to think. Once I moved out of home, I continued with this ironing of everything, feeling quite the failure if I got behind in it, and used or wore something that had not been ironed. In fact it was a mild dilemma! In my youth my housekeeping was the same, everything had to be perfect, walls washed once a month, windows weekly, floors every day… so demanding of myself I became a pain in the arse to myself and went and did a course to stop being so damned tidy. What a relief, well, sort of as it took me years to let go. And then I had children. Christians often say God send you lessons, to make you stronger, and he sent me a son who is untidy. There were days when I could not find a space on the floor to get to his bed, but because of the style of parenting we had embarked on, I had to accept it was his room, and none of my business! Lessons, so many lessons in life to learn! This son has told me for years that his body heat will iron his clothes, so absolutely no need for me to stress about ironing them. My husband ironed his very first item some years ago when I was running desperately late to welcome a bride and groom to their wedding reception,  one I was not only managing, but head chef for. He then wondered what all the fuss was about! Wow, this was hard to learn, and this morning, I still felt a tad uncomfortable about my husband walking out the door in an unironed t-shirt! Another friend taught me to stop feeling guilty about not ironing simple things like pillow cases… a lesson I am still learning (thanks KB xx). But my ironing will get done later today without too much fuss, and I will still feel good about it, but thankfully the pile is only clothes, no teatowels or undies and socks for me, no obsessions left, just a small job to get done. The kids clothes get folded and put away, no ironing unless it is something like a suit, which I send to the dry cleaners. How funny is it that something so simple can get in the way of living, yet still be a part of one’s life? I think my younger son is right, body heat is the way!