Resisting Rushing Season

It’s in the air. Can you feel it?

Candlelight and curling up on the sofa. Essentials at this time of year

No sooner have I finished deleting Black Friday and Cyber Monday emails do I realise that Christmas Day is less than a month away. 

It does seem as though the Christmas run-up starts earlier each year. (This year I first saw Santa smiling at me from packets of Christmas chocolate in my local supermarket in August.)

Whether you…

• Love Christmas!

• Don’t love it

• Have had your Christmas tree up since November 1^st (a la Mariah Carey)

• Can’t wait for it to be over

…when you live in a place where Christmas is celebrated, particularly where there is more of an emphasis on consumerism and less on the religious meaning (like here in the UK), there’s definitely something that happens at some point November and speeds up rapidly in December as the 25^th gets closer, and it can take effort to not get swept up by it on the way.

I call it ‘rushing season’.

Though this can manifest as a lot of physical rushing around, I think of this being just as much (if not more) about the mental stress that can arise at this time. Overall, it’s that feeling of “must get all these things done!” coupled with the expectations (and sometimes the guilt, and even shame) that can surround this time. 

The older I get, the more of a reflective time this has become and the less willing I am to tolerate any ‘shoulds’ around the Christmas season.