It Is December, Should I Be In The Christmas Spirit?

Good day to you ladies and gents, time for another personal blog post. So here we are again, it is December, the year is almost over, winter is upon us and Christmas is on the horizon and for the third year in a row I’m not feeling the Christmas groove.

If you have read this blog before (especially since 2011) then you should know how I feel about Christmas. But for those not in the know, let me clue you in. Christmas, it is something I used to love up until 2011. I’m not sure what happened exactly, but my interest pretty dwindled in that year and by 2012 I just didn’t care. Now in 2014 I’m in a position where I’m feeling just as care-free about the Christmas season as I was last year. I see Christmas trees and decorations up in all of the houses near where I live, shops in town are playing Christmas songs, adverts are playing on TV and people are wearing festive clothes and all that stuff. But there I am, just there thinking “Oh, Christmas, that thing is happening again? I hadn’t noticed, I’m just joking, but seriously I’m not fussed.” But I’m also finding myself curious, being around all this Christmas stuff, if I can rekindle the fire.

I seriously used to believe this and in a way I still do, however, that feeling, for me is gone.

I spoke in my previous blog posts about the magic of the season being gone and I still think it is true, that there is a magical aspect of Christmas that makes all of the commercialism and flashing lights bearable. Before it was the magic made watching TV specials and films related to Christmas so fun, it was that magic that made those old church hymns and songs fun to sing along to and made hanging with you family during the holidays so delightful. I think that sense of joy, wonderment and magic is mainly for children and those who never let go of that innocence. Once you become an adult, your perspective on things really change. You can either become a Scrooge, choose to let go of the past calmly or continue on for the sake of your children/younger siblings or family members. For me I want to believe that I could get into the Christmas groove, because nostalgically it has been a great experience for me and made the winter one of my favourite times of year despite the cold and crappy weather. I mean I currently work at a Christmas-themed event in town listening to Christmas songs continuously, I think I should at least try and get in the mood, but I don’t know if I should or when would be the right time to start busting out the Christmas songs of my own.

So in the end something tells me I will at least attempt to get into the festive mood and see if anything becomes of it. Now I pass things on to you, the readers! Do you think I should get into the festive mood or not? And how do you feel about Christmas. are you a massive lover or a big hater? Leave your comments below and let me know! Until the next time, laters. 😀

 

These Crazy Winter Days

Howdy people of the internet, time for a small personal blog post on the winter season and how I have endured it so far and what could potentially come over the next few weeks. I have made a good few blog posts about cold weather and winter over the last three years, and for some reason it just feels like it’s a subject that is easy to talk about. 😛

Yep, this is the season we live in and some people really love it, I don’t understand why?

So it is December, again, and it feels like winter is truly upon us. For us UK people is usually pretty cold and wet all year round, that being said, when Autumn comes into play things get very questionable weather-wise and then when the winter comes in, it came be even worse. We could have anything from constant rain, to super windy days to the dreaded appearance of snow, add on top of that the super cold temperature that is almost unbearable for some, ESPECIALLY at night.

For me winter has always been my least favourite time of year, its cold, wet, dreary and doesn’t look very nice outside of a window unless there’s a bit sunshine somewhere. And then there’s the whole illness side of things. Do you know how much of a bother it is to get ill or be around ill people at this time of year? It is a bloody nightmare. If you don’t have a cold then you’re running around trying to avoid it and trying to increase your immune system. Unless you have no reason to leave your house then every time you leave your house it is a mission just stay intact, avoiding the sickness of others whether they be people in the street, co-workers, friends or maybe even your family. You’ll be lucky to escape it, but if you do catch something, then mate, you’re doomed and will have to endure a moody Christmas. I think a lot of people like this time of year because of the whole Christmas thing, but they forget about how cold, dark and stressful this time of year can be. Some people even want snow, the check of it all! If you’ve read my blog before then you know how I feel about snow and cold weather in general. I despise snow because of its cold and disruptive nature, and every year I hope that it never snows at this time of year, sure its part of Christmas and all, but I just can’t stand it.

Since around mid-October the cold air of winter has been creeping in with the odd day/week of cold and now its coming to a head in the last two weeks. If you’re like me and live in the south east of England then you’ll know of the cold days that have really started to come into play. These days I go outside and it is pretty nippy and when it comes to the evening it is freaking freezing, not as bad as Sheffield by any means, but still cold enough to feel. It also doesn’t help that at my current job, I’m currently situated right next door to a set a set of automatic doors that lead straight to the outside and every time those doors open is frigging COLD and it’s SO annoying.

In the end I know it gets old hearing people complaining about it being cold, but it is always surprising when it does come to quickly and with the talk of snow coming and even colder days ahead, I just don’t even want to leave the house. I will become a house hermit for a month or two if it means my body temperature will stay in check haha.

 

Not feeling the Christmas season at all… Again.

Its incredible, Christmas is literally around two weeks away and yet I don’t feel like it’s coming at all.Right now December just feels like another month in the year to me, and to be honest that just feels so wrong to me.

Funnily I made a blog post about this exact same subject matter last year entitled Just not feeling the Christmas season and last year I felt like the magic of Christmas that normally took over my soul from the early part of December just wasn’t coming like it usually does, and this year looks exactly the same, maybe even worse. You see before last year Christmas was a magical time of year that would make me happy not matter how grumpy I got, but the fact remains now that I think the magic has completely worn off on me. I don’t see December as the month of happiness counting down the days until Christmas, this doesn’t feel like the season to be jolly anymore. All I see is lights, decorations and people in the festive mood, but again I don’t feel that, I’m just going about my day-to-day business taking no notice of the holiday season around me.

Now I’m no Scrooge by any means, I just don’t feel the magic of the season like I normally do. I would love to be able to say something along the lines of “Oh my god Christmas is so close, I am well hyped yo!” I could say something like if I wanted to, but then I’d be lying to myself and there is nothing worst than trying to fake happiness. I wonder if my mood will change when I get back home, one can only wonder.

 

Most Things Happen For a Reason

It has been something I have thought about for quite some time now, but only in more recent times in my life has it become more and more obvious. The whole concept of “actions have consequences” or believing in fate, regardless of what you call it, in my life it seems like that stuff actually applies a great deal. While most may call it a series of highly coincidental occurrences I say that sometimes some of that stuff actually happened for a reason and in a lot of cases my life has been better for it. Like how in the world of education I never got the grades I wanted after school so I had to take additional courses in college to get the qualifications necessary to get to Level 3 and while it was a pain to see my mates from school advancing I can’t regret my movements in college. I met so many lovely people who became my friends, I learnt so many additional skills that lent themselves to my later courses and in the 4 years I spent at college I got so many more opportunities than I would have if I had gotten super high marks in school, so in a way I’m sort of glad of my failure in a way haha. And that also applies to university as well. I had applied for uni in 2010, but then bailed before making my full application through UCAS at the end of that year, so throughout the academic year of 2011 I took a year out and did volunteering. And those days were some of the best times of my life, gaining more skills, getting work experience, networking and so on and so forth. Even when I applied to Westminster and didn’t get in there but was accepted at Sheffield Hallam University I was thinking maybe things would be alright. After all that I knew that this was all part of the bigger picture. So then I went into uni in September and since I have made some incredible new friends, I like my new course and living the university life is an incredible experience.

But sometimes the things that happen in life may not be as big, in fact it could just be the little things like meeting up with friends or certain people in those random locations are the things I find really special. So many times I have been late to a place or chose to take another direction to go to a certain place only to find an old friend or a mate who I haven’t seen in months or years and it feels so good to hang and talk. Back at Christmas I met up with an old friend who I hadn’t seen for 2 years and I was just mentioning him in a conversation with another friend when he just appeared out of nowhere. On that day I know that fate had a plan. Or take this more recent occasion when I was getting off the train I happened to spot my friend’s girlfriend and him on the other side train and we got to catch up again. Now this guy is in the army and it’s normally around 6 months before he comes back to visit, so after I saw him in December I thought there wasn’t gonna be a chance for me to meet him for ages, but there he was on the train with his girlfriend. And to think if I’d gotten the train I originally set myself for an hour earlier then that wouldn’t have happened. Again it had to be fate calling and it felt so good. While most of these occurrences have just been by chance or a strange twist of fate, they really have made me happier or made my life better in some way shape or form.

Sometimes however one has to endure times of great pain and struggle and suffer some of those days where you wish you hadn’t gotten up in the morning. Those are the days that frustrate you, depress you, hurt you, possibly make move you to tears or leave you in an emotional state for some time to come and that’s when you start to question whether things were meant to play out like the way in which they do. God knows I have done that on plenty of occasions. In my life I have suffered with my education from school right up until now in university, also for some reason I can’t seem to keep sustainable friendships with my older friends as they continuously drift out of my life through no fault of my own or take for instance that I used to be completely obsessed with drawing and making things within the area of art and cartoons, but these days I barely do any of that stuff and I’m lucky if I find the time or the effort to draw something truly meaningful. So one does wonder is this the life I should truly be living? Is there something better? Do I have to sit through all this shit before the good stuff comes around?

So right now I am thinking that maybe there is a reason why everything in my life has played out the way it has, I’ve always been a man who has liked to roll the dice of life and see where it takes me and for the most part every move has been a good one. Though I have rolled and lost many times, but as with most things in life not everything is gonna be happy-go-lucky all the time and you gotta go through a lot of shit before you make it through the other side. Though there are some who don’t have that problem, some make it though life without any problems or worries, I call those people rich people. But forget them, fate is a thing that I believe to some degree, though it is highly questionable with the way in which certain things go down in the world. Some may say that fate doesn’t existence and we ourselves make our own luck/fates and while I agree with that totally, I can’t help but feel that there is a greater force making sure I land in the places that I do.

 

Living in the dark days

Howdy ladies and gentlemen, basically this blog post is about living in the dark days of winter. As you can probably tell the light in the daytime is shorter and the darkness of the night creeps in ever quicker and takes over the majority of day’s light/dark contrast. Sure it’s the winter season and this happens every year, but every time it comes it always seems to catch me by surprise how fast the light fades from the sky and how quickly the night sets in. Now that we’re in December, the moon is already rising by 4pm and the sun is gone by 4:30pm. At this current point in time of writing this post I’m seeing the moon rise from my window. It’s always weird to see the moon appearing at this time of day and I’ll never get over it compared to the summer when the moon doesn’t show up until 9 or 10ish at night.

Now I don’t know if it’s just me but I think the seasons have started to speed up and it’s gotten darker quicker than it did last year.

Ever since October the skies have started to get ever darker especially towards the end of that month. I recall going to meet some friends in London and while on the train watching how fast the sun disappeared and how dark the sky gets around 4-5pm. And when November came in and started to take effect the sky seemed to be in permanent darkness especially when you when you sleep in like me and my flatmates, because at one point we had a string of days where we slept really heavy after long nights up or going out and it was funny to go to bed in darkness and wake up and the sky was already getting dark again haha. It was like waking up to find that the day was already over so it kind of sucked in a way but was also very hilarious.

In Sheffield when the winter season comes and it’s dark it really does feel dark.

So now we’re here in the early part of December and the sky seems to be constantly dark even when it’s not morning or after 4pm because the dark clouds in the sky in Sheffield makes it feel like night all day. So in the end I guess I’ll have to adjust to this until March and wait for normality to kick back into place where I belong.

Thanks for reading people 🙂