Finding Ourselves Again

It’s meant to be a season of togetherness.  Don’t get me wrong. This Christmas holiday offers a chance for a much needed break.  And often it is a relief to know that we are all sinking into the sofa and letting the mood take us. But there is all too often a profound sense of dread.

For all the festivities, it’s often the moment when the year catches up with us. Not because Christmas creates problems, but because it exposes the ones we’ve been too distracted to notice. When our busy lives are put on pause, the parts of life that feel unresolved quietly come into focus.

For some, Christmas shines a light on what’s missing.

When the pace slows down and the hubbub fades there is a melancholic longing for something that isn’t there. Christmas, with all its emphasis on closeness and tradition, has a habit of amplifying that absence.

Perhaps there is a person who should be there and isn’t.
Maybe a relationship that no longer fits the shape of your life.
A tradition that feels different this year, somehow thinner.

Sometimes life slips in through change. Lives are being quietly rewritten. And Christmas, with all its glory, brings it home.

Perhaps without younger children around you at Christmas, the magic shifts. Nothing quite compares to watching a child mesmerised by the wonder of Christmas lights or the promise of Father Christmas.

Layered into the thread is an unnerving pressure. Christmas can be punishing. For those quietly stretching budgets, determined to make it feel magical for their children while hoping the sums will somehow add up.  For those spending Christmas quietly on their own, the emotional weight can be heavy.  And for others, sensing an unspoken expectation to perform, to host, to appear effortlessly in control. The pressure is immense.

Never more so than at this time of year do I find myself, more often than I like to admit, packing a suitcase and heading to Heathrow. As a traditionalist, there’s a quiet expectation to be the family member. To put the show on. And whilst I enjoy the performance, I can’t help but have moments when I long for it all to be over.

What I have noticed, though, and only with time, is that there is an essence of vulnerability lurking.

I spend my whole year avoiding baking. Much to the relief of those around me, I hasten to add, only to become briefly possessed by the idea that this year I might actually pull it off.  At Christmas we imagine ourselves as hostess Queens; competently catering, baking, hosting and decorating as though someone might be arriving with a camera crew.  Of course, no one is coming to photograph my tree.  And if I’m honest, everyone would far rather have me calm than capable. But these are the small yet enjoyable distractions this season brings.

Because at Christmas it’s meant to be a time of hope. We don’t always look back, we listen inward. Amid the lights, something quieter waits to be found. Who we have become this year, and who we are still becoming.

Christmas, at its best, offers a pause long enough to ask a simple but powerful question: Where do I want to be this time next year?

For some, the answer is small and brave.  
For others, it’s discovering something new, exploring possibilities further afield. 
Or perhaps it’s simply permitting yourself to live differently.

Using this moment of pause is an invitation to grow, to choose again, to move forward with more clarity than before. Perhaps Christmas next year will reflect these changes.

Christmas doesn’t demand cheerfulness. It doesn’t ask us to pretend.

Sometimes it just asks us to be still. And if we allow it, Christmas can be more than a season.  It can be a turning point.  A quiet beginning.

To return quietly and allow ourselves to be more authentic to where we really want to be.