T'was the Season to be jolly...

Yaaay... I'm back! Wow... in a blinding flash of beautiful chaos another Christmas has come and gone. And may I say, for the benefit of any other highly sensitive, extremely introverted, single working mothers... "Hal-le-lu-jah, thank God it's over!!!"

I know.. not very merry of me but what can I say... to be honest Christmas just isn't an easy time of year for me. I try hard to hold on to the magic but it tends to vanish into end of year overload by mid December and I'm counting the sleeps till Boxing Day. The season brings with it an exhausting (and expensive) mixture of lovely highs and depressing lows that I'm still trying to process and learn from in the hope that I can do it all a little better next year. And no matter how grateful and blessed I feel the eve before, Christmas Day itself somehow has a way of unearthing the lonely in me, underlining and highlighting it with added exclamation marks by the end of the day !!!

This year as part of my survival tactics I decided it wise to give myself some extra breathing space... along with the stockings and mistletoe I decided to also hang up my paints and artistic ambitions, just until after Christmas of course. To be honest I needed an artistic break, some time to let all that I'd learnt in the previous 3 months settle in to my being and hopefully meld into something unique to me. I cannot wait to get started again and see what emerges in 2015.

I do hope your Christmas was filled to overflowing with that special jolly magic that only Christmas can bring. If not I hope you know that it's ok, I hope you've done your best to feel the spirit... that's all we can ask of ourselves. In the words of Eric Sevareid... As long as we know in our hearts what Christmas ought to be, then Christmas is. Now dust yourself off and get on with creating a better year ahead. That's my plan.

Bring on 2015 !!!

Don't worry... Christmas is always full of fruit cakes :) Phillipa Cullen... lol