Project 26
Scrooge’s Christmas?
At this time of year I always find it difficult to summon much joie de vivre. Call me Scrooge if you like, but Christmas has always seemed like something to be escaped - not embraced. I should explain that I come from a very small quiet family. There were never aunts or uncles, cousins or siblings. And now even my much loved parents have died, so the present list has dwindled to just one - my husband.
The Hollywood image of a family Christmas was never one that I could relate to. For years, Mike and I escaped to a beach somewhere hot for the main holiday of the year over Christmas. It was the only holiday window that existed where we knew that the office phone could be guaranteed to remain silent.
These days we tend to spend Christmas at home in London, and for me that precious time is mainly spent planning the year ahead and starting new projects.
It’s all too easy to see Christmas as a time to dwell on the past. But I’m coming to the conclusion that Scrooge’s epiphany teaches us all that it’s better to dwell on making the future better, instead of indulging in the past. So this year I shall be writing my New Year’s resolutions in the first week of December, and using the dark days of deep winter to get started on new projects for a new year!
I shall enjoy the Christmas lights, go for a long walk on Christmas Day with Mike and the dog, and make my signature wholemeal mince pies. I may even tweak my much admired summer fruit cake into a new take on the Christmas Cake. I will definitely indulge in a glass of bubbly on New Years Eve. But I won’t sit to watch of dreadful Christmas films on telly to see the New Year in. I’ll be tucked up with a podcast by ten and definitely asleep by eleven, because on New Years days I’ll want to be up with the lark! I’ll want to use that deliciously quiet day to work on whatever iteration of Project 26 I’ve come up with.
My Christmas might not quite end up like this. But buying secondhand - good - books as gifts for friends might not be a bad idea!
Very Heath Robinson by Adam Davis is on sale for £19.99 at the Oxfam Book Shop online.
https://onlineshop.oxfam.org.uk/very-heath-robinson/product/HD_303147919?utm_source=google&utm_medium=ppc&pscid=ps_ggl_OOS+-+Performance+Max+-+ROAS+-+Books_&crm_event_code=20REUWWS08&gclsrc=aw.ds&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22421930594&gclid=Cj0KCQiAxJXJBhD_ARIsAH_JGji-KMBSM4aDEElw5txWsuJhZI26vcseEyML5VZKDRaF_DZba1_irU8aAm_8EALw_wcB&sku=HD_303147919
Buy my book here: https://saytomato.org/happy-and-healthy-ageing/
