Reason's To Be [Not Very] Cheerful [, Apparently]

I realise that 'Reason's To Be Cheerful' hasn't overly lived up to its title lately, and I'm not sure if today will be any exception. It is late November and Christmas is all around. Decorations are being erected gleefully and the television is awash with festive adverts trying to flog posh food to adults and crappy toys to children. I always picture this time of year in my mind as a kind of steep mountain, which you continue to struggle up to the top all through December, past Christmas, onto New Year's Eve and........and none of it lives up to everybody's expectations, you realise this year's was exactly as disappointing as last year's, and you are left slightly fatter and less well off than you were in the Autumn! But I'm not really into it, but other people love it and must be excited at the weeks to come, and it was always great being a child at this time of year.


Upon awakening this morning I couldn't remember what day it was, and peeling away the curtains to bedroom revealed few answers other than a grey and unappealing sky. Realising there was nobody else in the house I assumed it must be Monday and so slotted myself back into last week's routine of drinking copious amounts of tea and scouring the internet clean of available jobs. Applied to a few more and phoned a couple of the agencies. 


Found it hard to really motivate today and it was a bit of a slog to achieve the few things that I did. I can't stand the greyness of everything this time of year. It certainly affects my moods, and it can't help having my job-finding problems. The clear and sunny days are few and far between, and it is mostly bitingly cold, and either raining or the cover of a deep grey blanket of cloud. The leaves have fallen from the trees and most of the birds have migrated. It is quiet, dull, and cold. 


Perhaps that is the advantage of Christmas then, the opportunity to add a bit of colour and sound to everything, and break up the long dark winter. For people to have something to look forward to and bring them together.