Tis The Season?

Good afternoon and welcome to this afternoon's blog. Hopefully the second national lockdown is not affecting you too much yet - I sure know it is affecting my weekends. At this moment of writing I should be half way through a round of golf. Oh well! And let me take a moment to congratulate Joe Biden in his victory over Donald Trump in the American Presidential election. Whilst I do not want to get into a debate about American politics, I am very pleased with the result and would thank the good citizens of America for doing what is best for everyone (as always just my opinion - I can already hear the haters). So onto today's topic. We have now entered November and in the minds of many we should be talking about Christmas. Now I will allow each individual to have their own opinion, but I want to focus on the mental aspect of getting into the festive spirit too early.

The most important thing, and this quotes a number of my blogs before, is do not wish your life away. Life is such a short thing and we should savour and embrace every second of it. If we start thinking about Christmas at the start of November then we are essentially wishing away 2 months of every year. So we live from January 1st until November 1st and then bypass until December 24th. This is not healthy, especially in the middle of pandemic life which we are all experiencing at the moment. We have had to suffer boredom for so much of this year, and whilst many of us want this year and indeed this pandemic to be over, anything could happen to any one of us at any time. Let's embrace life and look forward to the Christmas season, and make the most of it when it comes around.

Whenever the word Christmas or Santa or holiday season gets mentioned everyone goes into panic mode and think they have to order the turkey, buy the presents, write millions of cards and decorate every inch of their homes with tinsel and other Christmas-themed bits. This gets people stressed and they put pressure on themselves if all their friends have done it and they haven't. The week leading into Christmas through to New Year's Day is a very busy and high-energy time for everyone and all our energy should be saved for that time of the year. Let's not burn ourselves out in November so when Christmas Day comes around all we want to do is lay on the sofa, eat excessive amounts of food and sleep (be honest we all do that anyway).

The one thing that everyone always complains about when it comes to Christmas is the financial strain on their bank account. However, and as controversial as this might sound, that is all choice. Nobody needs to spend £100 on a turkey. Nobody needs to buy presents worth several hundred pounds each. Nobody needs to buy a dozen bottles of champagne so they can get excessively drunk. Yes we do it because it is a special time of year that everyone has the right to enjoy, but it is not necessary. We make the choice to spend the money to make Christmas a special time of year. Christmas is about spending time with our families and this does not need to be expensive (although this year will probably be as cheap as chips for many of us). Enjoy Christmas and New Year but do not regret it in January.

So the million dollar question here is do we worry about Christmas because we want it to be special day or because we try to live up to the standards and stereotypes that are set by other people? Well, you could argue either way. My advice to you, however, is do what you want to do. Each of us have the right to be happy at Christmas in whatever form that might take. Make the most of it this year as pandemic life is going to prevent the usual celebrations we usually have with friends. And as tempting as it might be to break the rules, that will only get us locked down for longer. Make sure we only have to suffer for one year, not next year or the year after.

So for now, Merry 7 weeks until Christmas!

Connor

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