Festive Shock: Going 'Cold Turkey' on Christmas

Content-warning: depression

This post is a tongue-in-cheek poke at middle class festive traditions in the UK.

This coming Monday is Blue Monday which is supposedly the most depressing day of the year. Whether you are a glass-half full or glass half-empty sort of person, you have to admit that these first few weeks in January are a bit of a struggle right? There are plenty of reasons why you might feel like that, from the weather to that broken new year’s resolution (if you’ve already slipped, don’t worry and don’t write the year off, just get back on the horse - Rome wasn’t built in a day).

However, I want to present my theory on one of the biggest reasons that I feel down after Christmas: I’m calling it Festive Shock. Essentially the fact is that we spend weeks and weeks preparing for Christmas and getting in a festive mood and then come the first week in January, bang, it all stops suddenly. There’s no time to get used to being back at work!

When does Christmas start? It depends what country you’re in probably but in the UK it’s basically the day after Halloween. Why? Well that’s simply when the shops take down their pumpkin decorations, put out the discount quality street and start playing Wham - Last Christmas on repeat (Whamageddon anyone?). In the US, it’s the day after Thanksgiving where, retailers have their Black Friday sales which are less about piling into your local electronics shop and more about selling billions of parcels online. I don’t have a huge amount of data for other countries but I believe that German Christmas Markets typically kick off in Mid-November. It seems like, for much of the western world, people start getting jolly in early-mid November, ramping up to all out mince pie cramming 6 weeks later at the end of December. Then, it all suddenly stops.

“But what about the period of time between Christmas and New Year?” I hear you cry “surely that’s your coming down period?” The problem with that notion can be described in a single word: “leftovers”. How am I suppose to gently wean myself off of ’the christmas spirit’ when Aunt Mabel is force feeding me Turkey? She only got a small one that serves 26 this year because her 2 sons and their partners were coming over. I’ve also got to eat all of those chocolates that my cousin gave me because on the 1st of Jan its “new year, new me (again)”.

Let’s face it, in the twixtmas between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, nothing’s really changed except the TV adverts have shifted away from surrealist perfume ads to holidays and diets. Nothing has ramped down at all! Sometimes I have to work that period but it’s always dead quiet because everyone who’s in the office during that week has still got ‘mince pie brain’.

There’s also the rule that all the decs have to come down by the 6th of January (the 12th day of christmas). Yes, that’s it, take down all the nice shiny bright happy lights in one of the darkest months of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, that’ll cheer us all up!

So what’s the solution?

Well dear reader, I’m not saying you shouldn’t work on yourself but instead of going ‘cold turkey’ on the 1st of Jan, why not gently tone things down over a few weeks? Who says that diets have to start on new year’s day? Why not slowly reduce what you’re eating over a few weeks? Why not leave some fairy lights up a bit longer while nights are still dark? I won’t judge you if you sing ‘Fairytale of New York’ to yourself in the bath in February if it makes you happy!

When it comes to the end of the holiday season, you don’t have to go cold turkey. Except for in the literal sense, it’s not going to eat itself.