I can’t remember a really happy Christmas as a child.  For me, a good Christmas at home was one where there was no fighting between Mum and Dad.  My siblings might differ, but this is my recollection.

Over the years I came to create my own significance for Christmas, and now, I look forward to it every year!

For me, it is one of the annual milestones that have become important to me, and has its own set of values, and here they are:

• It’s the end of the year, a time to switch off, and reflect on the year just gone. A time to allow myself to take time out from normal everyday routine, socialise and do whatever.
• It’s time to repair broken, damaged, or neglected relationships. A time to ask for forgiveness from those I’ve hurt, reassure those I have neglected that they are still important to me; and to re-connect with those I’ve become distanced from.  This can include all sorts of relationships: friends, family, ex-husbands, and so on.
• I love all the trimmings: the trees, the food, the lights and so on, but I am totally neutral about the ‘Christ’ angle – to me it is irrelevant. I acknowledge that there was an historical Jesus, but it stops there. I am atheist in belief, a conclusion that left me feeling spiritually liberated!  To me, it’s a cultural, rather than a religious custom, and I’m happy to continue with the traditional trappings that I grew up with.
• As much as I love giving gifts to people I love, and I delight in finding something I know that a particular person will like: definitely NO CHRISTMAS PRESENTS! I give gifts when I want to give them, not when compelled to do so!
  (Although, I have to confess, when the kids were little, I couldn’t do this, no matter how many times I resolved to, and then relented at the last minute!  I really struggled financially as a single parent, and there were a few Christmases that I borrowed, or sold stuff, to buy gifts for the children to go under the Christmas tree.)

So, for me, the best thing about Christmas, is kicking back at the end of the year with family and friends who are around, and chatting and reviewing the events of 2016.  A time to be grateful for the good parts of the year, and to be philosophical about the not so good.

It’s a time to relax, a time to refresh and recuperate, before the excitement and promise and busyness of the New Year to come!

In closing, I wish you all a wonderful Christmas 2016, may it be all that you want it to be!  And, it’s up to you to make it happen that way!