Christmas and the New Year are a time of traditions. Whether it’s putting up the decorations that have been in the family  for generations, or watching ‘The Great Escape’ on the television for the umpteenth time, we seem to draw comfort from following familiar patterns at this time of year. In this category, too, are the New Year’s Resolutions that we feel driven to make at the start of January, and all too often abandon only days or weeks later.

It’s easy to scoff at the very idea of New Year’s Resolutions as just another of those corny practices to which unimaginative people cling ‘because everyone else does it’. But is this tradition such a bad idea? Is there something to be said for re-evaluating ones life at this time in the year, and deciding on the changes that one would like to make? 

For a start, the time after Christmas is not such a bad time for such an exercise. The temptations of the holiday period – the office parties, the Christmas drinks - are past, and few of us will not have indulged in a few bad habits, such as scrounging a sly cigarette from a friend. Roy Wood and Wizard may have sung ‘I wish it could be Christmas every day’, but few of us would survive to a healthy old age if it was true.  Perhaps a period of reflection - asking ourselves whether these bad habits are an acceptable occasional treat, or are becoming too much of a crutch – is no bad thing.

Christmas is sometimes not only a period of indulgence, but also a time of increased stress. Although not often mentioned in the usual depictions of Christmas, it’s a sad fact that the holiday period can bring much higher levels of anxiety. The myth of Christmas is one of happy families reunited in a festive atmosphere, but the reality can be ‘inescapable’ invitations that bring contact with family members with whom relationships are at best tense, if not downright murderous. How many Christmas dinners end up with barely repressed tensions and decade old issues erupting into blazing rows, or (perhaps worse) depressive sulks? So again, isn’t the New Year a good time to take a look at yourself, and try to address some of these behavioural patterns that cause you so much misery?