Christmas can be a mad consumerist crescendo, a season of chaos and great towering turrets of inescapable admin. But if you can strip all of that away, along with the expectation to be anything particular for anyone, it is quite simply the greatest expression of what we are as humans and what we do with life: the coming together of friends, family, rituals, memories, feelings. It's about giving, about sitting with the simple things, each other, a game, eating together. And it's a conclusion to the year, the ending before the beginning. We need cycles, seasons, full stops. We have to stop in order to go again. And this is what Christmas is: the door to the one time in the year that we really, truly switch off.
I stop being an adult and become a child again, relive simplicity through my children. I detach from reality for a while, recede into the carols of my youth. Revisit the rituals of a lifetime. I also pause in the present. I go out with a wheelbarrow, picking out the freshest ferns to bring into the house. I listen to the Messiah from start to finish, without skipping to the good bits. I stop to play, whether with the children, or friends, or even on my own (solitaire, hallelujah!). I stare aimlessly into the fire, notice the hiss and flare as you light a candle, marvel at the satisfying simplicity of leftovers.
This year's games have come from that idea of coming together, whether that's with other people, or with our own minds. Of taking the time out to do something ostensibly pointless, and in doing so having a moment of undistracted connection, either with the person we're playing with, or with ourselves. The Burmese are excellent at playing games, and take them very seriously, and with good reason. Games are the antithesis of phones: sustained focus, tactile materials, lovely heavy brass noughts and crosses, impossibly smooth lacquer balls, carved wooden draughts; happy celebrations of the materials we work with.
I have a love-hate relationship with the gifting part of Christmas. There is nothing better than getting a present right; making the recipient feel cherished and understood. If you get it right, it's because you've really understood what makes them tick, what they respond to, and in doing so, what connects you with them. But getting it right often takes time, and freedom of mind to come up with the answer, which is something that the mad dash of the season often gets in the way of. Ideally, rather than panic posting matching presents to my godchildren on 16th December, I'd take them out for lunch, find out what makes them laugh, and why they love Christmas (or don't!). But that isn't always possible.
What is possible, though, is choosing something made by a person and with a story. Because then you're giving more than the thing itself. You're giving energy and light and soul. And for children, who won't care about any of that yet, you're giving future rituals. The decoration they'll gasp at as they dig it out of the box as adults. The one they used to love. A memory which becomes simple joy, joy that will give year after year after year.
So this Christmas, I hope you find your way to the things that feel good to you. The bits of the past you love, the parts of the present that help you pause, and the rituals you're building for the future. The candle, the game, the leftovers, the long cosy afternoons. And if any of our things find their way into it, even better.
