Christmas is all around

France, afternoon

So, it is a fact, Christmas is all around. People mostly talk about what to do, what to buy, what to give, when to leave to meet with the rest of the family...and all around there are Christmas trees, and Christmas markets, and Christmas decorations....

And some people classically at this time of the year feel blue. I love Christmas. Not so much the day of Christmas, but the preparation, the atmosphere, the expectation, in some ways it brings me back to when I was a kid. But it is also true that Christmas is the time in which if you don't have a special person in your life, if you don't have a great relationship with your family, and in general if you feel alone, everything gets amplified. I read once that the higher number of suicides during the year is exactly between Christmas and New Year. The fact is that you (or at least I, and as me also a lot of other people that I know) feel that you have to be happy around this time. So, if there is something wrong in your life, it just became more evident. And just more sad. One of my best friends always hated Christmas and got very down around this time. Now she has her own family, so I hope that this year will be better for her.

But I can't stop thinking about all the people that are alone, all the people that for one or another reason cannot be with their loved ones. I got an email from a friend of mine the other day. He wrote me that Christmas time makes him feeling very sad, because if he always more or less manages to cope with the fact that since quite sometime he doesn't have a girlfriend, around Christmas he only notices happy couples....And I met this old lady on the street today. She asked me if I was going back to Italy to celebrate Christmas and I said, yes of course. And she told me that her daughter will not visit her because "she has too much work to do" and because "she doesn't like here, she thinks that Paris is much better" and she concluded "I will celebrate Christmas with my cats". She looked like she was used to this, no news there. Maybe I am over-sensitive, and for sure I get over-sensitive around Christmas time, but I felt like hugging her. Come on, Paris is only four hours from here and her daughter cannot find a day to visit her mother during Christmas time?

Last year my Christmas-New Year was horrible. I was very, very down, and I just wanted to be...instead, because of family reunions, and I didn't want to upset my family etc, I had to try to smile and get along, even if I didn't really feel like (I have to admit that I didn't succeed very well in faking my mood)....

I love Christmas, but I always get to this time of the year very tired....and feeling lonely...I am looking forward anyway to go to Italy and hug my mom, my sister, and my grandma.

And if you feel a bit blue, just check out this great Christmas song :-) (from the movie Love Actually).