"Thursday was such an emotionally challenging day.

The news that all of Leicestershire was to be placed in tier three, along with our neighbours in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, wasn't a massive surprise, but it was very sad and distressing all the same.

All our plans for December, like our family dining rooms, breakfast with Santa, and all the other things we do each year, have been wiped out at a stroke.

It's frightening to think about what the effect of that could be on our business. There is a small grant available from the government of £500 per week, but normally in December we are putting money aside from all our Christmas bookings to make sure we can pay the bills in January, February and March when things go quiet.

This year, there's no money to set aside, and like everyone else in the hospitality industry we're now looking forward with trepidation to 2021, which promises to be a very hard year indeed.

Our thoughts and best wishes are with all our staff, who now face more uncertainty, and another month with reduced incomes because the Job Retention Scheme doesn't enable us to pay full wages.

And with our customers, who are missing the usually social atmosphere of the pub at Christmas. And with all of our suppliers, breweries, farmers, wholesalers, distillers and the like, who, like us, now have another month in which their sales will nowhere near measure up to their costs.

The current situation is a nightmare for the whole hospitality supply chain - and while the media are making some effort to explain the threat faced by pubs (Nick was interviewed by BBC Radio Leicester as the news broke yesterday) it is important to remember all the other businesses now teetering on the edge of collapse.

Some of our suppliers have been family businesses for decades, providing jobs and economic benefits for the local community. And all of them are now facing an extended crisis into what should be the busiest month of the year.

If you've read this far, thank you so much for your interest and your support. Please do two things for us over the next few weeks while we're unable to welcome you into the pub.

Firstly, find whatever ways you can to support local, independent, family-run businesses. The supermarkets seem to be doing just fine in lockdown, selling their 'essential' supplies by the bucket load to huge crowds of customers who don't appear to need to be socially distanced either. But the family businesses are not fine.

Despite that, those independent businesses are full of creative, dynamic and caring people, who will work themselves to the bone trying to find ways to keep going.

Here at the Geese and Fountain, we'll spend December selling gift packs of beer, gift vouchers, bottles of organic wine, take-away food and even cook-at-home Christmas meals, for collection or local delivery, so if you need anything, please get in touch.

Other local businesses will be doing the same. So whether you are looking for a Christmas tree (Burgin Lodge Lamb), fish (Moorcroft Seafoods Home Delivery), meat (Price And Fretwell Ltd) or gift ideas for all the family (Local Business Directory, Vale Of Belvoir, Melton Mowbray And Grantham) there's bound to be someone locally who will appreciate your support so much more than Amazon or Tesco.

Secondly, please join us in writing to your MP and asking that they press the government to increase the level of support available to hospitality businesses affected by the extended restrictions.

We've now been scraping the bottom of the barrel for nine months, our landlords are losing patience, our insurance companies are refusing to pay out, and our staff are getting desperate.

There needs to be more than £500 a week paid to businesses that are no longer able to open our doors, or those doors will never open again. And the support must extend to those breweries and other suppliers who, without pubs, have no customers to keep them going.

We understand the government will review the tiers on December 16th, so we have our fingers crossed that we might be allowed to open in some way for at least a few days before Christmas, so that we can see you all in happier circumstances.

Thanks so much for your continued support, and we hope you have a very merry Christmas despite the situation we all find ourselves in."

• Nub News thanks the Geese and Fountain for allowing us to run their Facebook post, which responded to the government decision to place even small rural communities like Croxton Kerrial in the highest tier available.

• Nub News is keen to hear from other businesses and publicise how you are responding and how people can help. Please email details to [email protected]