These in-between days

It's strange this time between Christmas and New Year.
Like a no-man's time of in-between days
Between Christmas and New Year.
Between this year and next year.
Between the over-indulgence of Christmas and the resolutions of New Year.  
But while we waiting for all those next things to happen, we just sort of carry on doing all the things we were doing at Christmas: eating, drinking, spending too much money, but with a bit less enthusiasm. 
The Christmas decorations and flashing lights that looked so exciting at the beginning of December,  look slightly forlorn now, like has-been film stars who still want people to believe they are young and beautiful and full of promise.
The excitement and interest in new presents has waned and for parents of young children, the days return to their normal wrong-side-of-6-am starts and tantrum-filled evenings.
And for the rest of us, who are lucky enough to not yet have to go back to work, the days are mostly full of crisps, staling crackers, cold turkey and all the tear-jerking movies we don't want to admit we love.
There are, of course, " The Sales," casting their elbow-sharpened, mania-inducing, bargain-hunting shadow over these half-hearted days.
People queueing outside shops at 5 o'clock in the morning to make sure that they get to the " must-have," bargains before anyone else
But even the most die-hard consumers can't keep it up for a week and in the end, they too have to surrender to the inbetweeness of it all, to the knowledge that the next part of the year isn't here yet.
But there are worse things to surrender to.
Worse things than snuggling up on the sofa with an oversized packet of crisps-( the crisps you're going to give up eating in the New Year so you might as well eat the whole packet now ) - and a glass of the Baileys you only drink at Christmas.

Worse things than waking up in the morning and knowing you don't have to get up and go to work or school.
Worse things than watching good films on TV and relaxing together.
Worse things than knowing that the day is yours to fill.
Because the good thing about these in-between days, is that most of the holiday obligations are over.
You've seen all the family members you're meant to have seen, bought all the presents you're meant to have bought,  sent all the cards you're meant to have sent - there is nothing left that you're meant to do, so instead you are free to do whatever you want.
Perhaps these in-between days are not so much "no-man's time,"  as "an island of time," when we can bask in the warm feeling of having nothing-in-particular to do and relax in the knowledge that we can do whatever we want.
They are rare, these days of "no-strings-attached -indulgence," so the best thing to do, is enjoy them.
And who knows...perhaps these days of faded Christmas decorations and leftover mince pies are the very days that dreams are made of, or if not, they are the very days that sleep is made for, so that there's a lot more time for dreaming!
Enjoy...

Putting the HAPPY back in Christmas

There's no subtle way to say this, so I think it's best to be honest - I don't like Christmas.

I don't like the flashing lights or the  glitter and tinsel.
I don't like the messages of peace and love stuck on the windows of neighbours who haven't spoken to each other for years.

I don't like the overt consumerism or the pressure to buy presents that nobody wants at prices nobody can afford.

And I don't like the tension Christmas creates within families.
It's starts with the phone call ( usually in June ), when one parent or parent-in-law asks:
  " So, what are you doing for Christmas this year?" and it carries on right until the inevitable family row over the Christmas dinner table on December 25th.

The Family Row is almost as permanent a Christmas tradition as the roast turkey, long-standing, unresolved family feuds have started while pouring the gravy over the roast potatoes and stuffing. 
And everyone with young children knows that all they have to look forward to on Christmas evening are the tantrums, tears and broken presents that come with too much excitement and too little sleep.

" I don't have anyone to spend Christmas with," said someone I bumped into at the Christmas market the other day, " so I thought I would spend the day researching my new novel..I've just booked my ticket, I'm spending Christmas Day  in Auschwitz."
It seems like a bit of an extreme response, spending Christmas in a concentration camp,  but I can sort of see where he's coming from.

Nothing makes you feel more lonely than having nowhere to go and no one to be with on this most family-oriented of days. 
 Perhaps immersing yourself in desperately horrific memories is the best way to put it all in perspective and cheer yourself up.

For the families in the Children's Centre where I used to work,  Christmas stress begins with the opening of the first door on the kids' Advent calendars.
By the time Christmas Eve is upon us, the hysteria is almost tangible and the downward spiral into financial and emotional crisis has begun. 
January is a Christmas hangover month, not just because of the lack of money and huge amount of seasonal debt, but worse than that because of permanent emotional scars caused by overindulgence and over-much time spent with family members. The number of couples filing for divorce in January can be double that of any other month in the year.

"Experts claim factors ranging from the stress of family gatherings at Christmas, unwise candour encouraged by excessive alcohol intake and even office (christmas) parties can prove the final straw for many married couples."
Ian Cowdrie, Daily Telegraph

I'm thinking I should start a " Stop Christmas Now!" campaign.
I'm sure the government would back it .  They could cancel Christmas for a few years, the way they've cancelled so many other things like public services, benefits, and public funding for anything important.. Think of the money it would save (except for Amazon) and the emotional crises it would avoid, not to mention the multi-cultural, secular message it would give:

Our 17 year old daughter, Mia, despairs at my lack of festive spirit.
" Can we at least put up some Christmas decorations and our tree before Christmas Eve this year?" she asks. " I don't see why we all have to suffer just because you don't like Christmas."
I shrug. 
" Well," I say, " If you want to do it, I won't stop you.  The tree's in the cupboard under the stairs but we haven't got any lights because they broke last year and we don't have that many decorations."
She shoots me a " did-Dr-Seuss-actually-base-the-Grinch-on-you?,"  look, and googles " My Parents Hate Christmas Support Groups<" and templates for Christmas decorations.
" Did you have to get a Christmas tree this colour," she complains, dragging the dusty box out from under the stairs and trying to unbend the wire branches.  " I mean, if we can't have a real one, couldn't we at least pretend the fake one was real by getting a green one."
" We felt that a black one was a more honest visual representation of our true feelings about Christmas," I say.  
Mia groans and tries to find a way of keeping the star from falling off the top.

And much as it pains me to admit it, she's done a good job.
The tree looks as good as can be expected and a little less lopsided than usual and our front window is now covered in snowflakes and reindeer and stripy candy-canes.
And in big red and green letters across the top, she's written the words:
"HAPPY CHRISTMAS, Cred to Mia."
But the best thing about it, is not that she has dragged us kicking and screaming into Christmas but that everyone who walks past, smiles as they read it.
And I suddenly realise why it is that my inner Grinch always takes control at Christmas, it's because something really important is missing.
Amidst  the hectic preparations and manic last-minute present buying, it's easy to forget the " happy," and the "merry," that should be the biggest part of Christmas.
The words of the song aren't: " We wish you a present-filled Christmas and a debt-filled New Year," 
And the truth is, I would take off my " Stop Christmas Now," T-shirt if Christmas truly did make people merrier and happier.
And I know there are moments when it does.
For our family it's Christmas Eve when, whatever else we are doing or wherever else we are going, we always have dinner with the family who lives next door.
Over the years we have become more part of each other's family than friends. 
And each  Christmas Eve ( although none of us can actually remember how the tradition started) we, each of us spend the day cooking  a special dish and the evening sitting around a table overflowing with delicious food, contagious laughter and warm, rose-tinted memories.
And I'm sure that as the evening wears on and the cognac appears, I will be filled with the very un-Grinchlike feeling that perhaps, just perhaps, Christmas isn't so bad.
And already I can tell that my campaign is flawed because it's not so much that I want to stop Christmas as that I wish it would start meaning something different.
I wish that instead of being about the giving of meaningless presents and the cooking of too much food,  it could be about caring for each other more and celebrating what we already have.
So today I'm launching a new campaign to -"Put The Happy  Back in Christmas."- if I can do it, you must be able to!
And I'm going to start by wishing everyone all the love, laughter and "dreams-come-true,' that a really happy Christmas can bring..

Queen of Nothing

It's strange, but since I've stopped working, I've found myself increasingly defined by my past, by the things I used to do.
" This is Becky," people say when they introduce me, " she's..um...she used to run a Children's Centre," or " she used to work for  that charity PACSO." or " Do you remember Just Write for Kids Club, she used to run that?"
And it's fine.  I don't mind.  .
But there is a little bit of the : " she-used-to-be-someone," about it.
It's almost as though people are embarrassed for you, ashamed for you that you don't go out to work or have a "proper," job.
" Is it really boring being at home?" people ask, "What do you do all day?" .... and when I think about it, I'm not sure what exactly it is I do but I know that I'm never bored.
I know that since I stopped working, my life has become much simpler and in a strange way, much more meaningful. 
And that's what's hard to explain.
it's easy to give a value to work that is paid.
Easy to believe that if you have a job with a title and a job description, you must be doing something useful and important.

it's harder to believe in the importance of what  you are doing when your days are spent hanging out the washing, unsuccessfully matching socks,overloading the dishwasher and generally failing to be the domestic goddess you thought you were. 

But truthfully, I've never felt so fulfilled.
When i worry, it is about things that are important to me or my family and friends. I no longer have to worry about a budget that isn't mine or targets imposed upon me by people I will never meet who care little or nothing for the services they are asking us to provide.
I'll let my MP and local councillors worry about those while I worry about what to cook for dinner,  how to convince our son that revision is important if you want to pass exams ("what's the point, they're just mocks, I'll have forgotten it all by May") or our daughter that she really doesn't need to buy anymore clothes or another pair of shoes ("you don't understand mum,I can't wear the same outfit twice,")...
They are all things that  I used to worry about when I remembered, but only in a half-hearted, " I know they should matter but there isn't really time," sort of way. 
I couldn't even worry properly. 
I couldn't do anything properly: not my job, not being a parent, not tidying the house, not cooking the right food..and so I used to feel constantly guilty.
Being able to concentrate on one thing is amazing.
 Sometimes I even feel that I'm doing it, if not well, than at least to the best of my ability.
And that's such a relief.
It feels as though slowly, very slowly, I'm reclaiming my life, remembering who I am and what's really important to me.
Instead of bombarding our son with unwanted questions the moment I walk through the door, I wait for him to volunteer information. And In spontaneous, erratic moments of closeness, he is beginning to talk to me again. 
Instead of listening with half an ear to our 17 year old daughter, Mia,  while I'm making dinner and mentally responding to work emails, we sit down together and talk when she comes home from school.
Evenings are not spent in collapsed exhaustion gazing helplessly past the television at the growing piles of untidy chaos that surround us and thinking: I'll deal with it all tomorrow.
" I hear there's much less shouting in your house since you stopped working" says my mother-in-law when I speak to her on the phone
" Do you?" I say, surprised, "who told you that?".
" Mia ," she laughs, "when she was here last week."
And thinking about it, I realise it's true. 
I can't remember the last time we had a full blown argument, the kind where you worry the neighbours are going to report you to social services. A consequence, I suppose,  of the fact that, when I was working, I was in a state of perpetual slight irritation with work, with my family, with my life and took it out on whoever was closest to me.
" I couldn't do it," said one of my oldest and most treasured friends this weekend,  " I couldn't stay at home, I'd just sit on the sofa, eating and watching telly all day. I'm too sociable, I need people to talk to."
She has a point the temptation of chocolate and day time TV are a definite downside but not the lack of conversation.  
Of course I miss the people I worked most closely with but I still see them and now they are friends instead of work colleagues. And there are lots of unpleasant conversations I'm glad I will never have again. 
And then there's the friends I almost lost because I never had time to meet up, the friends who drop in for an hour for a cup of tea and a chat, the mornings spent sitting round the fire in our living room, talking about things that matter to us instead of things that matter to someone else, sharing the hopes and dreams that come with trust and friendship.
And I know I'm very lucky.
I know it's a privilege  to have been given this chance to rediscover what is truly important to me.
I know it is not forever but just for now.
And just for now I'm loving it.
Loving being here when the kids get home from school.
Loving being here to catch them when they fall.
Loving having no deadlines or time limits.
Loving baking cheese muffins and making vegetable soup that no one eats.
Loving laughing with friends and really listening to what they say.
Loving almost touching my dreams.
Loving being "Queen of Nothing," and "Mistress of Everything That Matters To Me."
So the next time somebody introduces me, I'm going to say:
"I'm Becky, I used to be someone else, but now I'm me."