Christmas can often be a time for reflection as well as for novelty socks, and 2022 proved to be no exception. This year’s socks were emblazoned with a radical yet surprisingly positive message that caused me to reflect on several things, including my impending gym membership renewal and the perennial attraction of modular construction. Who knew that festive footwear could offer so much?
Putting my new socks aside for a moment, I’ve always found Christmas to be a good time for reflecting, particularly that rather special period right at the end of December. It’s a time when all the relative-visiting, present-giving, carol-singing, and other mandatory festive obligations have been seen to. You’re not obliged to see anybody, telephone anyone, cook something, or visit anywhere. Even shaving is optional. Yet the time for making (and then breaking) all those New Year resolutions has yet to arrive. And the pressure of bracing yourself for 2023 still lies ahead, as does that rather depressing headlong dive into the cold and murky waters of January’s ‘back-to-work’ routine.
And so, without any noticeable obligations, you become a post-Christmas free agent for around five whole days. Time passes in a haze because all the days blend into one. You even have to look at your phone to check which day of the week it is. You literally have nothing to do, and no one is expecting you to do anything; other than occasionally unload the dishwasher, pass the Quality Street, and fast forward through the adverts. If you open the fridge, there are still some cold turkey leftovers loitering. They may be getting a little thin on the ground, but you’re still in risotto territory and could possibly even run to a curry. The Christmas cake is down to its last third, and there are even some of those fancy chocolates left, albeit from lower down the batting order, preference-wise. In short, it’s a perfect time to reflect on life while eating lots of nice food. And, if I’m being candid, watching quite a lot of TV to boot.
One of the more interesting things I caught on TV during this reflective period was an old episode of Tomorrow’s World. It regrettably pre-dated my secret 1990s crush on Philippa Forrester, coming as it did from the somewhat sterner Judith Hann era. I’m guessing from the hairstyles that it was probably from the mid-80s. The subject of the episode I watched was the electric car, and in terms of predicting the future, it was about as accurate as a two-iron out of the rough.
