Enjoy yourself

I always have a love-hate relationship with Christmas. Yes, it’s lovely to meet up with your family and exchange gifts, eat too much, drink too much and watch crap on the television. It’s a time to grab a bit of rest in an otherwise hectic life.

What I don’t like is that it all seems forced, or rather enforced. Conventions are followed, shops are shut, work is curtailed and the whole world seems to be closed. I know this is not true and I am taking a very solipsistic view but that is how it feels. It’s Christmas time, you will take it easy and you will enjoy yourself!

You’re caught in a bind. Your routines are turned upside down. You scrabble around buying gifts that you hope will be liked, knowing fine well that the only person you can actually buy meaningful gifts for is yourself. Come the actual day, the pressure is on to turn out some culinary perfection that cannot possibly live up to the ideal seen on the television. You make so much food that you could never eat and serve it on mismatched cutlery, with chairs borrowed from all corners of the house arranged around a table designed to accommodate half the number of people you have invited. And all the while every spare part of your house is covered in festive paraphernalia which you are dying to take down and store away until next year.

It’s all a mess yet I guess this is the fun, eating mince pies for breakfast and stuffing yourselves with chocolates before a lunch of leftovers, not knowing which shops are open, if any, the next day or when the bin is going to be collected, working out which relatives you haven’t been able to see and how you will fit them all in before everyone returns to whichever part of the country they live in.

Christmas is special. It is completely over the top and a huge disruption to our lives yet this is what makes it special. The fact that nearly everyone puts their normal to one side, even temporarily, makes it a powerful force, one to be reckoned with and one that, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t beat.

Ah well, it will soon be over and someone will tell you how many sleeps it is until the next time.

Season’s Greetings!