Keep your Christmas-heart open all the year round.

Quote by Jessica Archmint.

I spotted this Christmas choccy in the shop today. CHRISTMAS - IT'S STILL AUGUST! Scottish schools are back but the English schools are still on SUMMER HOLIDAY!

It's an outrage!

Christmas - just not how it used to be. Or is it me? Maybe, I've lost the Christmas Spirit and need to have a rethink.

These days it stresses me out - it's all about what it 'should' be. It should be perfect, everybody should be together and happy, the perfect food, the perfect gifts.

That's an impossible dream.

So, this year I will concentrate on my nearest and dearest and make sure we do what we WANT to do. I'll forget the stuff that stresses me out and maybe the Christmas Spirit will return.

And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more. ~Dr Seuss