| It’s always in the days after Christmas that these thoughts surface. The wrapping paper has been cleared away, the fridge is still doing its best impression of a delicatessen, and there’s finally a bit of mental quiet. It’s only once the rush has passed that you get a chance to properly reflect on how the festive season actually felt, rather than how it was marketed, scheduled, or expected to feel. One of the first things many people notice is the silence — or at least, the absence of Christmas music. Not because festive songs are inherently awful, but because by the time Christmas Day arrived, most of us had already been living with them for weeks. The same limited playlist follows you everywhere throughout December. Supermarkets, radio stations, TV adverts, social media clips — even a quick errand turns into a soundtrack you didn’t ask for. At first, it feels nostalgic. Then familiar. Then the background noise. And finally, if we’re honest, a bit overwhelming. When the music finally stops or switches back to something neutral, there’s a surprising sense of relief. Not the dramatic kind, just a quiet “ahh.” It’s less about rejecting Christmas and more about realising how constant the noise had become. There’s something about repetition that drains the warmth out of even the nicest things. By the end of December, it’s not that people hate Christmas songs — it’s that they’ve simply had enough of hearing the same few on a loop. Looking back, it’s also striking how quickly the whole festive period seems to disappear. Christmas now has an unusually long runway. Decorations appear early, adverts start earlier still, and the build-up can feel relentless. Yet once the day itself has passed, it all seems to vanish in a blink. The season stretches out for weeks in anticipation, but the actual experience feels oddly compressed. You wait for it, prepare for it, and then suddenly it’s done. Part of that is down to how adulthood reshapes time. When you’re younger, Christmas feels expansive. School breaks create long pauses, routines dissolve, and days stretch lazily into one another. As adults, December tends to feel like a race. Work deadlines stack up, social plans fill the diary, and even the nice moments are slotted in between obligations. There’s rarely that sense of being truly “off.” Life doesn’t slow for Christmas anymore — it just keeps moving, slightly louder and brighter than usual. That lack of pause makes the season feel shorter, even if it technically isn’t. By the time many people actually stop working or mentally switch off, Christmas Day has already arrived — and before you’ve really settled into it, you’re counting down to the New Year. It’s no wonder it feels fleeting. When everything is tightly scheduled, nothing has room to linger. In hindsight, it’s easier to see why the festive season can feel both overwhelming and oddly unsatisfying. When Christmas is pushed so hard, so early, and so insistently, it leaves very little room for anticipation. By the time the big day comes around, there’s often already a sense of fatigue. That tiredness dulls the enjoyment, making the whole experience feel shorter than it should. What becomes noticeable in this quieter period between Christmas and New Year is how many people are craving simplicity. Fewer expectations. Fewer plans. Less noise. There’s a renewed appreciation for the moments that didn’t make it into any festive highlight reel — the quiet walks, the unremarkable afternoons, the low-key meals eaten without ceremony. The ordinary days, in many ways, feel like a relief. It’s also a time when people start questioning whether the way we do Christmas really suits us anymore. The music, the marketing, the relentless build-up — none of it leaves much space for personal rhythms. Yet, at its heart, Christmas is meant to be reflective, grounding, and restorative. Those qualities are still there, but they’re easy to lose when everything is amplified. As decorations slowly come down and normal routines begin to creep back in, there’s a gentle opportunity to rethink things for next year. Maybe Christmas doesn’t need to start quite so early. Maybe the music doesn’t need to be everywhere, all at once. Maybe fewer traditions done with more intention would feel better than ticking every box. The idea isn’t to strip Christmas back to nothing, but to give it room to breathe again. And just as you start to enjoy that slower, in-between space — when the year feels like it’s exhaling — there’s that familiar, slightly sarcastic thought that sneaks in. I suppose I should be preparing for Easter eggs to be available next month now… because nothing quite captures modern seasonal life like barely finishing one celebration before the next one is already stacked on the shelves. Perhaps that’s the quiet lesson of this end-of-year lull. Not everything needs to be rushed, amplified, or endlessly repeated. Sometimes the nicest moments happen once the music stops, the lights dim, and there’s finally enough quiet to notice how you actually feel. |
After the Music Stops
Earthly Comforts 
I’m glad that we have just 2 religions festival and they aren’t that commercialized.
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My sentiments, exactly, Rory.
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