Christmas and New Year and for some Thanksgiving and Birthdays. This time of year, to be quite honest, is crazy. I love Christmas, the cold air, family, Christmas trees, snow (sometimes), the lit-up streets, Christmas fairs. I think it’s so nice because so many people celebrate the same thing at the exact same time, few people are working and every family or couple or friends have their own traditions and plans.
I like walking past the trees and wreaths in houses and every house looks similar. You wouldn’t find many houses without some sort of Christmas decoration. Who knows how Christmas has evolved into what it is today and what it might continue to evolve into in many years to come? Maybe one day we won’t celebrate Christmas anymore, but for some reason I think it’ll stick. It has for a long, long time. I hope that Christmas and New Year will always be a time where family and friends come together.
I know that Christmas isn’t so jolly for so many of you and Christmas comes with seemingly endless stress and lists to tick off. Somehow, we are expected to find a bottomless pit of money that wasn’t there all year round for presents and food and trees and events. For some this holiday is unbearable – a reminder of people lost or times long past. I know that celebrations like Christmas can create some emotional challenges for me. I try not to dwell on this, I know so many others have it so much worse than me.
However, there will always be more suffering in this world and this doesn’t mean that your suffering no matter how small you deem it to be in relation to others is not valid, understandable or worthy of thought and feeling. I think we need a reminder at this time of year to embrace the negative emotions we feel as well as the joyous ones. I don’t know many people with a perfect family life and this time of year forces us to look at it a bit longer than we may usually and that’s OKAY.
Embrace the feelings that you feel (if you are able and if it is safe for you to do so) and use this time as reflection and healing. We are all supposed to have a break at Christmas, let our hair down, you should let your emotional hair down and destress this Christmas. We won’t be stressed out this Christmas, we will be happy and emotionally well as we’ve felt and embraced the negative emotions that inevitably come along with this holiday. Say it with me!
I know that life can be hard, especially in a time that it’s practically seen as unnatural to be sad. It is okay to feel down at Christmas, hell, it’s okay to hate Christmas. Be who you are and do what you need to do for your mental wellbeing this Christmas. Give yourself the gift of self-love.
I hope you all have a wonderful time celebrating Christmas and the festivities over the next couple of weeks.
I won’t be uploading a blog post next week – I am taking a well needed break from everything laptop based and you should too!
Thank you for reading.
Happy Christmas from me š
I have an exciting podcast coming on Sunday – Check it out on Spotify or anywhere you listen to your podcasts!
Last week’s podcast:
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