So, are you really okay? '“ Verity Lush

And so this is Christmas. And what have you done? Another year over, a new one just begun.  Christmas can be a time of great happiness, and joy, and excitement.
Verity is mentally preparing for the festive battle for parsnipsVerity is mentally preparing for the festive battle for parsnips
Verity is mentally preparing for the festive battle for parsnips

But it can also be depressing, and lonely, and dark.

Hopefully, life has dealt you decent cards this year and you are settling down to a festive period that is filled with love, in whatever form that love may take.

However, if it hasn't, then I wish you a gentle Christmas. A Christmas that goes easy on you, and a Christmas where others think of you and make an effort for you.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

And if there are no others close at hand, then surely we all need to make the effort to be there for those who are lonely this Christmas.

And, of course, not only at Christmas. At the end of that most famous of festive ghost stories, A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge comes to realise that he should keep Christmas in his heart all the year round.

And he doesn't mean in a Wizzard way, where we wake up Groundhog-esque to greed and want, but in more of a Lennon way.

A way in which we consider what we have done for ourselves, for others, for the world around us.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

However sentimental it may sound, it is important that for our time on this planet, we are kind.

None of us knows what other people are worrying about, or feeling anxious about, or keeping hidden from others.

Instead, we are  surrounded by fake fronts, by the ubiquitous, '˜I'm good thanks, how are you?' that we all reply with instead of an honest, '˜I'm a bit rubbish actually, struggling a bit at the mo. How's you?' that might be more honest.

If only we weren't afraid of bringing others down, or seeming weak, or appearing as though we are simply not the life and soul of the party season.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

It's not a party season for everyone. It never can be nor will be.

But it is a season for giving '“ hopefully something of yourself, as well as the material excitement.

How closely will my festive dream match the reality?  

I have highlighted my copy of the Radio Times and strategically planned my festive viewing. 

Step away from Netflix children and drop the remote with your hands in the air. The Mumster has landed on the sofa.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

I have also  squirrelled away chocolates in cupboard hidey-holes, planned when I shall attempt to go running over the yuletide, and have my most comfy sets of jim-jams washed and ready, and just waiting for me to leap into them and laze.

Though in reality I shall be swathed in turkey fat, getting a sweat-on when I open the oven and am blown backwards by volcanic heat, mascara running down my face and taking Baileys intravenously.

If only we could have a 1980s-style detox this year

I am preparing myself both mentally and physically to go and do the annual battle for parsnips this weekend.

But I never understand, what is it about the festive food shop that brings so many of us out in a cold sweat?

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The shops are only shut for approximately 15 minutes nowadays anyway, so it's not like the good old times when you had to do a massive shop because the shops would be closed for days.

Much as those days did require spending three hours being dragged about the supermarket by mum, I do miss the global shutdown that was '˜Christmas'.

It was like the 1985 equivalent of a digital detox. You closed off, shut up your mental shop, and hibernated. Pure bliss. 

Â