Listen, Christmas is the biggest trigger of the year; it is almost sinister in its triggering efficiency when it comes to pressing emotional buttons. You know that. I know that. We all know that. If we know nothing else… we know that.
And so we dread and we plot; we hope and we despair. We fantasise wildly about how a slight swerve in a different direction could take us to an entirely new emotional destination. We wonder about last minute flights to the sun; last minute romances; last minute murders; last minute sedation. And, all the while, we know two things:
- That Christmas will deliver whatever it decides to deliver because we are a little bit over the need for ULTIMATE CONTROL. That ship has sailed.
- That we are likely to be a little depleted, even a little disappointed but that there will almost certainly be small pockets of joy and that in the end we are likely to be absolutely fine.
I mean, look at your family. Look at my family (actually don’t – you might turn to stone). We are, all of us, descended from a long line of lunatics. Generations after generation of maniacs. Even the stand-out stable one had their own colourful weirdnesses and peccadillos. Christmas shines a light on the inner weirdo of near and dear ones young and old.
And so we get through it. We keep our expectations low (lower… even lower… there you go!) and we know that our heritage of lunacy (from low level to proper bubbling madness) gives us the genetic stalwart resolution to just breathe through it. As we have generally done. If we are warm and fed and not alone then we are clearly winning. Furious, knackered, triggered, tearful and winning.