socialising

How to survive the festive period (and hopefully even enjoy it)

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1. Watch It’s A Wonderful Life and pretend that’s the reason why you’re crying

Thank goodness for this film and the perfect excuse it gives us to ball our eyes out without drawing anybody’s attention. This film breaks me every time – the bit with Mr Gower and the wrong pills, the part where Mary tells the children to pray for their father, and the bit at the end (which I won’t spoil, just in case). I’m welling up even as I write this.

But as well as crying at the film itself, I know I’m also blubbing about the year gone by, about all the emotions that Christmas makes you feel, and out of sheer bloody exhaustion. After the year we’ve had, it might be a good idea for us to pop the film on now in the hope that we’ll have pulled ourselves back together by Christmas day.

2. Repeat after me: I am not responsible for anybody else’s fun

I feel a bit anxious ahead of social occasions, but saying this to myself – and truly believing it too – has really made me feel better. You are not responsible for other people having a good time. Be nice to people, sure, and buy them nice presents if you’re that way inclined, but don’t panic that if you’re not on absolute top form then the entire festive season will be thrown in the bin.

Everybody participating in Christmas – or any other holiday – has to bring something to the table, whether it’s good humour, cracking anecdotes or, ideally, gin. It’s not all on you. Now breathe deeply, have a mince pie and enjoy yourself.

3. Buy something new to wear on Christmas Day if you want to – but don’t if you don’t

Be honest, how inadequate are you currently feeling about the glittery-ness of your wardrobe? Your total inability to transform from a normal human being into a sequin adorned princess? I’m guessing quite. Advertising is good isn’t it! But you do know you can just wear something you already own, don’t you? Or that if you do buy something new it doesn’t have to double up as a light source? They should really cover this in school.

I have the Christmas day outfit dilemma every year. This December’s quandary goes like this – do I wear my gold skirt which is covered in so many sequins that every time I walk one of them tries to take a slice out of my leg? Or my new silver skirt, the material of which is so synthetic that when I wear it with a coat, the lining lifts it entirely, exposing, well, everything? As long as I’m not required to move an inch throughout Christmas Day, I guess either outfit will be fine.

4. Reserve the right to say no to social activities

Just a short sharp reminder that your human rights remain intact at Christmas time and if you don’t want to do something, you don’t have to. Or if you do want to but you’re already party-ed/shopped/prosecco-ed out, you’re free to make a wise decision and just stay home. Nobody is keeping tabs on how festive you’re being this year, or any year. Do what you like – as Anne. T. Donahue always says in her excellent newsletter: NOBODY CARES.

How to cope with the festive season5. Make plans to see people in January 

“I HAVE to see you before Christmas!”

“But we’ll see each other before Christmas, RIGHT?!”

Umm, probably not now. We’re into December and any days or nights people do have free are being kept that way to help them recover from all the days and nights they’re out celebrating this joyous time of year.

But guess what – it’s OK! We can see each other in the New Year when we’re all just counting down until March and the prospect of daylight lasting for longer than an hour and need some social interaction to help cheer us up.

I understand the want to see friends and family before Christmas, to remind them that you love them at this oddly emotive time of year, but don’t create pressure that doesn’t need to be there. Sometimes the kindest thing you can say to someone you care about is: you don’t need to worry about seeing me right now, let’s do it another time.

6. See the ‘end of year effect’ coming

Every year on about the 16th of December I start to feel sick. There’s nothing wrong with me, my body just becomes desperate for a rest. All of a sudden I’m making it participate in more socialising in a month than I’ve done throughout the rest of the year and, frankly, it’s not having it. Add that to tiredness I’ve accumulated during yet another 12 months of being a grown-ass woman and I’m just about ready to collapse into a heap at any moment.

This has happened enough years in a row now to make me think it must happen to other people too. But now I prepare for it and this is my advice should you wish to too: see it coming. Avoid going out multiple nights on the trot. Re-read point 4 on this list. Try to eat some of your meals in your own home. Drink plenty of water. Do some really good, deep breathing. Schedule a bath and an early night. Everything really will look and feel better in the morning.

7. Don’t fall into the ‘I haven’t bought mum/dad/the dog enough presents’ trap

BUT WHAT IF THEY DON’T HAVE ENOUGH TO OPEN? is my number one Christmas Day based fear, closely followed by ‘What if I accidentally catch my hair on fire on a candle’ and ‘What if my Christmas socks are in the wash and I don’t get to wear them on the ONE day they were designed for?’

It’s always there, waking me up in the middle of the night, listing everything I’ve bought so far, tutting and whispering “Really, is that all?”

But this year I’m determined not to fall for it. We are all so extremely fortunate that it is ridiculous to think that if we don’t all have thirty five presents to open we’re going to suddenly combust. So say no to the Christmas Eve panic that sees you dashing to the novelty gift section of your local department store and seriously considering buying your nearest and dearest a book of fart jokes just so that there’s more under the tree.

For everybody’s sake, hold onto your money.

Solitude is good for you, loneliness is not

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IMG_7519No matter what I’m doing, where I am, or who I’m with, I’m always conscious of the next time that I’ll get to be on my own. It doesn’t matter how much fun I’m having, the knowledge is always there, like a security blanket I never thought I’d need.

For me, solitude is as important as breakfast. I need a strong dose of it everyday to help me stay upright. Partly because I have social anxiety, so get-togethers can be a bit exhausting, but also because I’m 30 years old and this is what it’s like to be a grown up – we love other people’s company but we enjoy our own just as much.

Sometimes I wonder if I look forward to a social interaction being over as much as I do the event itself. I feel a great sense of achievement when I’ve been out and had a great time – when I’ve been to a party and stopped noticing whether I’m enjoying it or not because I just am. I love coming home knowing I’ve done some seriously good socialising and then feeling free to enjoy a spot of solitude because I’ve earnt it.

Time alone hasn’t always felt so precious, though. I’ve written before about how we all have to learn to love our own company. When I was at university, my friend Emma and I would hang out – sometimes in lectures, often at her house, mostly in Primark – and then she’d disappear off for an afternoon nap to prepare for whatever evening activity we had planned. She needed a rest and some shut-eye before further fun could commence.

But I didn’t need this break. We still laugh now about how I’d say “If you need me, I’ll be at home, lying down with my eyes shut,” because I wanted to join in but I just couldn’t nap. (I still can’t, actually, unless I’ve had an alcoholic drink, in which case NIGHT NIGHT.) I didn’t know what to do with the time. I was bored on my own, I’d have to go and buy a magazine to entertain myself. I’d will the time away until somebody was free to come and play with me.

And yet now I crave that time. Modern life demands a lot from us. We work, we go out, and we’re all constantly in touch with each other via phones and emails and apps I sometimes wish had never been invented. If a colleague says they have no plans for the weekend, you can hear the office groan with envy at their freedom, everybody else’s diaries gasping for a gap to pop a wash on, do the weeding, or just lie down.

IMG_6523It’s hard to keep going non-stop for days on end. We need time when we don’t have to think about making the right facial expression or saying the right thing. A bit of space to think it all over, or to think about nothing; to be alive but hardly moving. I like to have a bath and do a face mask. I like to watch Friends episodes I’ve seen so many times that it feels like some of the storylines actually happened to me. And I like to go to bed without having to set an alarm because – for once – nobody is expecting me to be anywhere the next day.

I say all of this mindful that I can enjoy occasional solitude because it’s a treat, not a constant. I’m not lonely. Leon will be home again in a few hours, all being well. I have dates in the diary to see my friends and family soon which I’m looking forward to. Without these things it would be a different story. It is for so many people. The joy of solitude is not to be taken for granted because it’s only a pleasure when it’s a break from the norm.

The realisation hit me hard after we got married that even forever has an end point, that we’d signed up to be each other’s world and that we were relying on each other for company for the rest of our lives. I’ve had to force myself not to worry about it all the time, but I try to hold this knowledge close when I’m frustrated to find the fridge door has been left ajar, or that a world of grated cheese has mysteriously appeared on the kitchen worktop after somebody has come home from the pub. I try to think – what does it even matter? A love of cheese was all I ever wanted in a man. We can buy more. I’m just glad you’re home.

Like everything in life, it’s all about balance. I’ve spent today alone. I made a bacon sandwich and set the smoke alarm off. I listened to Hugh Bonneville’s Desert Island Discs and cried twice, as is standard for an episode of D.I.D. I saw for myself what it means when a cat starts digging a small hole in your back garden (no, it is not treasure they’re planning to bury). And I sat outside and wrote this.

But tomorrow I’ll be in company again and I wouldn’t have it any other way. What’s important is to know yourself well enough to build in what you need, and to try not to budge if anyone suggests that you do otherwise. You can feel it in your bones when you need a rest. Look in the mirror and your eyes will beg you not to leave the house, to stop just for a little while.

I am grateful for a life that is busy enough for a spot of alone time to feel like a treat. Like all luxuries, a life filled with solitude just wouldn’t be right, but a regular dose will do wonders for your health.