Yes, it’s not long now and time for my annual session of delight, mingled with a nagging sense of ‘it’ll all be over in a couple of weeks’.  I love it, I really do, but ever since I can remember I have had adjustment issues immediately it is over.  Boxing Day? Pfft!  Give me Christmas Eve any time – that is the day, the excitement is almost tangible, you really could almost touch it, but you still have it all to look forward to.

I think that the biggest part of this sensation is the fact that I have a December Birthday.  You know, perhaps, I have to wait for everything to come at once and then that’s it for a whole year. I guess it’s a consumer thing, Birthday and Christmas gave me the chance to have things, sometimes things that I could buy for myself with gifts of money.  Or at least that was the case as a child, now I’m an adult, I can buy things for myself throughout the year, so there’s not quite the same feeling of be marooned in the middle of the year without a bean to my name – I still don’t now, but that’s a different matter. Ha ha!

Then of course there’s the fact that you don’t have to go to work.  When I worked in an office, I would always wangle it so that I had a full two weeks off. Then, I realised that I was wasting my leave.  I could have the statutory holidays off and then go into to work at half ten, do absolutely bugger all and go home at three thirty.  A Christmas bonus from my employer if you like!  Leave spent in the office!  Um…  But anyway, here’s wishing you a very HAPPY CHRISTMAS!