My hope for you—my Christmas wish, if you will—is that this festive season is loaded with love, plates heavy with all your favourite food, and the warming glow of nostalgia. If now isn’t the time to indulge your inner child, then I don’t know when is. What I do know is that even when you’re fortunate enough to have all the aforementioned festive fare, this time of year can also come with its fair share of stress; awkward conversations, inherited expectations, family politics, and the ever-present pressure to recreate a version of the day that may no longer fit who you are, or the life you’re living now.
Friendsmas, by contrast, offers a welcome antidote to the hustle and expectations. It’s a chance to bring together the people who truly get you, your chosen family. The friends who have held your hand through breakups and breakthroughs, who’ve seen you at your worst and loved you despite it; or if you’re really lucky, because of it. The people who make ordinary evenings feel like something worth celebrating. And yet, so often, our friends are the only people we don’t celebrate.
