The SantaBlog Series, Day 23. (On the Edge of Christmas)

THE SANTABLOG SERIES

DAY 23

_{Press play before you scroll.
This one feels like the moment when you finally stop pretending you’ve got it all together.}

When the World Slows, But Doesn’t Stop Yet

There’s a strange feeling that arrives on the twenty third of December.

It isn’t totally excitement, not really. It’s heavier than that, quieter. The kind of feeling you don’t notice until the world begins to ease off after weeks of movement.

Most of the travelling has already happened, for those travelling. The messages are mostly sent if not being given by hand. Plans exist, even if they don’t quite feel real yet. Everything looks close enough to Christmas from the outside, but something inside you hasn’t arrived there.

The shops are still busy, but the energy has changed. People aren’t wandering anymore, they’re finishing. Grabbing the last bits they forgot, trying to tie loose ends before time slips away again.

And underneath all of that movement is something harder to name.

This is the side of Christmas that doesn’t really have a name.

The part that sits in your chest rather than on your calendar. The moment where you realise the year is almost done, but you’re still inside it, so close yet so fucking far away. The year is still carrying its weight around with you.

I feel it too. I’ve still got one more day of work left before Christmas can really begin, which makes the whole thing feel suspended. Close enough to taste it, but not close enough to touch it. Everyone else seems to be posting pictures of jumpers, drinks, sofas, and tree lights, while I’m still watching the clock, still in the middle of normal life, pretending I’ve switched off when I clearly haven’t.

It’s a strange place to stand. Half in the season, half outside it. Trying to arrive emotionally before you’re allowed to arrive in real life.

And maybe that’s what the twenty third really is.
Not the build up.
Not the celebration.

Just the waiting room.

What We Carry Into Christmas

By the twenty third, most of us have stopped pretending that this year turned out the way we thought it would. We carry things into Christmas whether we want to or not. Grief that didn’t have time to soften. Relationships that never quite healed. Promises we made to ourselves that quietly slipped through the months without being kept.

This isn’t the part people plan for, but hey… it arrives anyway and there is nothing you can do about it.

It sits quietly behind the wrapping paper and the half forced smiles. It shows up in the spaces between conversations, in the moments when you drift off mid sentence and realise you’re tired in ways sleep can’t fix.

Some of what we carry is heavy because it’s new. A loss that still feels unreal. A change you never asked for. A version of life that vanished before you had time to understand what it meant to you.

Some of it is older. Long running disappointments that you hoped this year would finally ease. Habits you swore you’d leave behind. Feelings you thought you were over until December brings them back without warning.

Christmas doesn’t erase any of this.
It’s just there.

You can be grateful and grieving at the same time. You can be surrounded and still feel lonely. You can laugh in the moment and feel the weight again as soon as the room goes quiet. None of that makes you broken. It makes you honest.

And maybe that’s why the twenty third feels so different to the days that come after it. It doesn’t demand anything from you yet, it doesn’t say Christmas is here, cheer the hell up. It doesn’t insist that you perform celebration. It simply acknowledges that you’re still in the middle of your life, not stepping out of it.

That’s what the 24th is for.

Christmas is coming, whether you’re ready or not.

But right now, you’re still allowed to be exactly where you are. Still in the slum of the year with little dips of your toe in the excitement.

You get right on the edge and feel excited just for life to kick you in the balls or the fanny while it’s saying, “not yet dickhead.”

The Quiet Things That Suddenly Matter

By the twenty third, the big things don’t really carry the weight anymore.

It isn’t the tree or the food or the plans. It’s the small, almost forgettable moments that start to stick. The kettle going on for the fourth time in an hour because you don’t know what else to do with your hands.

Standing in the doorway of a room and forgetting why you walked there in the first place. The way the house sounds different when everyone else is asleep.

You notice things you’ve ignored all year.

The creak in the stairs you’ve learned to step over. The way the street lights blur when it’s been raining. A song on the radio that shouldn’t make you emotional but somehow does anyway. None of it is dramatic, but all of it feels louder than it should.

This is the part of Christmas that doesn’t shout, it whispers little nothings into your ear.

It lives in half thoughts and unfinished sentences. In mugs that go cold because you forgot you poured them. In the way you sit a little longer than usual before getting up, even when there’s nothing stopping you.

It’s where memory sneaks in too.
You think about people you haven’t spoken to in years. About rooms that don’t exist anymore. About versions of yourself that feel close and distant at the same time. Not enough to ruin the day, just enough to remind you that time is doing its thing whether you’re watching it or not.

The twenty third makes space for all of this.

It doesn’t tidy it up, it doesn’t resolve it.
It just lets it sit there with you for a while.

The Pressure to Suddenly Be Fine

There’s something about the run up to Christmas that makes people feel like they’re supposed to switch states.

One minute you’re still tired, still behind, still carrying the mess of the year. The next you’re meant to be cheerful, present, grateful, and full of fucking magic. Like there’s a button somewhere you forgot to press.

You can feel it in the air. That quiet pressure to hurry up and feel better. To stop being complicated. To wrap the mess up neatly so it doesn’t get in anyone else’s way.

But real life doesn’t work like that.
You don’t drop twelve months of stress just because a date changed. You don’t suddenly become whole because someone put lights on a house. You don’t stop needing time just because everyone else is acting like time has run out.

So a lot of people fake it.

They laugh louder than they feel. They pour another drink when they don’t really want one. They tell themselves they’ll deal with it all in January, like January is some kind of emotional recycling bin where you can chuck everything you don’t have space for right now.

By the twenty third, that pressure is already creeping in.

And it’s exhausting.

Because it’s asking you to perform joy before you’ve had a chance to catch your breath.

Giving Yourself Permission to Arrive Slowly

By now, it probably feels like Christmas is trying to overtake you.

Everywhere you look there’s noise about how you should feel. Excited. Grateful. Ready. Like you’ve somehow failed if you’re still tired, still distracted, still a bit fucking flat.

But the truth is, you don’t owe the season a performance.

You don’t have to be ready just because the calendar says so. You don’t have to match the energy around you. You don’t have to be cheerful on demand.

Sometimes the kindest thing you can do for yourself is let Christmas come to you at its own pace.

That might look like doing the bare minimum tonight. Letting the washing wait. Leaving the decorations half finished. Saying no to one more thing instead of yes to everything.

It might look like going to bed early without making a big deal out of it. Or sitting quietly with a drink, no you’re not a piss head you’re just a normal person letting the year go slowly. And if that involes having a drink, then have that damn drink and don’t you dare feel like you have to explain yourself.

You are allowed to arrive slowly. Take your damn time, it’s been a bloody long year, time can slow down for you for once. This next day or two is the wind down, and you don’t owe anyone an apology.

Let the Day Be What It Is

So whether you’ve finished for the year, or you’ve still got another damn day of work left like I do, let today be what it wants to be.

Don’t wrestle it. Don’t try to manufacture a mood. Let it pass at its own pace, because right now you’re not meant to be anywhere else but here, halfway between the grind and the glow.

The chubby bearded fucker is on his way. (Just a little british adult humour, I’m not being nasty to santa, just for the record [insert laughing face emoji here])

He’ll eat your cookies, whatever form they take in your house or the mince pies or whatever counts as a festive offering in your house, and his little sleigh pullers, reindeer or otherwise, will mop up anything left behind. Give the old bloke a whiskey, or something equally respectable, and let him enjoy his one proper night of graft after a year of watching all of us trip over our own lives.

I mean he’s definitly earned a good drink on the job after spending all year watching all of us muddle through the mess we call life and watching the shit show that was your year, he deserves a drink and a biscuit more than anyone after keeping tabs on whether you’ve earned your place on the good list.

Better entertainment than EastEnders or Coronation Street, anyway.

Have yourself a glass, or three, or ten. Drink to your heart’s content if that’s your way of letting the year go. Everyone deserves a good liquid refreshment at this point, especially after the nonsense this year threw at you. Consider it a small act of rebellion against the relentless seriousness of everything.

Whatever your year has thrown at you, enjoy these last scraps of normal life. The quiet moments before you sit down, loosen your belt, and eat like you’re preparing for hibernation. Or don’t, whatever. It all depends what your Christmas looks like, and that’s the point…

It’s your Christmas… fucking enjoy it.

Let the wind down do its thing.
Take it slow.
Have a little smile.

Christmas is just around the corner.

🎅THEPLAINANDSIMPLEGUY🎅

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