How many times have you heard the classic end-of-year phrase: “We must catch up before Christmas!”
There’s no doubt a deadline sharpens the mind, but do you know what else has to happen before Christmas? Present buying, lunch organising, holiday planning, work deadline meeting and celebratory drinking. For those with children, add in class partying, school concert performing, childcare concert attending and dance concert hair-spraying (so many concerts).
I’m here to sing the praises of January as a far superior month for catching up. The first month of the year is lazily filled with days full of summer holiday vibes. Even for those working, it’s a calm stretch of time with few deadlines and an air of relaxation.
January is a nice month for catch ups too. And, you know what? It’s not that far away. The barrier between 31 December and New Year’s Day might seem like a scramble wall in a mud run, but it’s really just another 24-hour period.
Does it really matter if we catch up before 25 December (which, let’s face it, is a totally arbitrary day for many) instead of, to pick a date at random, 19 January? I’m pretty sure we’ll all survive not seeing each other for that extra time, especially as we can send merry texts around Christmas and check out each other’s New Year’s Eve pics via whatever social media platform survives to the end of 2022.
Ironically, it’s often friends we haven’t seen since March who are most eager to catch up before Christmas. Actually, this year, some of those friends haven’t been seen since December 2019.
It was when my kids were young that I reached peak freak-out about the seeming need to catch up with every single person I’ve ever met during the busiest weeks of the entire year.
One year when, between school, preschool, childcare and dance, my two very small kids were involved in seven concerts, three award ceremonies and four parties. There was then the stress of trying to shop in secret during a time when I was never not either at work or with the kids (or, occasionally, asleep). I’m not sure I actually enjoyed any single one of these December activities due to the constant need to plan (and finance) the next one.
Oh, to live in the northern hemisphere where Christmas isn’t just after the end of the school year. It would be even better if Christmas and the new year were separated by more than a week, but who am I to muck with the oddities of our Gregorian calendar?
I remind myself that we humans live in a world dominated by cycles, like the light-and-dark of each day and the seasons of the year. As much as we’ve minimised the impact though artificial lighting, temperature control, the global economy and self-imposed sleep deprivation, these cycles are fundamental to our existence. After all, life is one big cycle of birth, growth, decay and death.
Humans have always added cycles of our own creation and, in our western culture, Christmas is one of the biggest. It’s just a shame that the cycle of Christmas and the new year tends to feels akin to an out-of-control downhill cycle ride. Or a spin cycle on a washing machine.
I’m under much less pre-Christmas pressure these days. My kids are older and after moving states I have fewer friends within easy catch-up distance. I also simultaneously switched from working across multiple teams to freelancing solo from home, dramatically reducing the number of pre-Christmas work functions on my December schedule. The Covid years have even further decreased the number of social events in my life.
If your life more closely resembles my earlier days, please don’t be afraid to respond to someone asking to “catch up before Christmas” with the words: “January is a nice month too.”
• Vivienne Pearson is a freelance writer
