It’s Chrrrrriiiiisssttttmmmassss!!!!

This morning I opened the curtains to a stream of sunshine. The skies were clear, crisp blue and the road behind the house glistened with a fine sheen of ice.

The fields had been sprayed with a shimmer of white and the bare arms of the white birch tree outside my window looked as though they had been dusted with icing powder. December has crept up on me slowly and tapped me on the shoulder with his chilly fingers. It seems like a blink ago that I was lying in the recovery position, the July sun beating down on me, knowing that something terrible and life-changing had just happened.

Christmas will mean more to me this year. We all know it should be about the people, not the presents. We know it should be about spending time with those we love, putting feuds behind us and showing goodwill to all men. Yet somehow it slides into too much to eat, much too much to drink and before you know it, you’ve given someone a snippy answer and someone’s snapped back.

This year, I’m going to be one of those annoying people who say, ‘remember what’s important.’ Believe me, you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. Look in the mirror and be proud of yourself, be kind to yourself and love what you’ve got. Then look around you, at your friends and family and remind yourself how lucky you are.

As you know I’ve just read Katie Piper’s book ‘Beautiful,’ and her alternative Christmas message, aired a few years back on Channel 4, says it all. I’ve borrowed her powerful words to post here.

‘My life before was very self-absorbed, self-obsessed, and it took a tragedy for me to reassess my life and how I felt and what I thought was important. Don’t wait until you lose somebody. Don’t wait until it’s too late. Appreciate the beautiful things and the beautiful people that you have in your life now…My Christmas message would be to tell people that I used to hide away and be ashamed of how I looked, frightened of people’s reactions. If people are doing that or feel that way now, I would urge them not to, because they don’t have to feel like that. You can become accepted, you can regain the confidence. And for the people that need to do the accepting, who maybe freak out when they see somebody who’s different, you absolutely don’t have to.'

Even when you think things can never move forward and you feel so low, there’s always a way out. I never thought that I’d be sitting here saying this. Never.’

So Merry Christmas everybody; enjoy, appreciate and savour.