My recollections of Christmas are quite powerful and often when I think back to my happiest childhood memories they involve the Christmas holidays. I remember the excitement of dad coming home with a Christmas tree and spending hours dressing it with anything and everything sparkly, getting giddy from the smell of brandy pouring out of mom’s slightly imperfect looking Christmas cake and my childish naivety that the presents, the food, our guests all appeared from some magical place. Despite my older brother unveiling the truth about Father Christmas when I was five, I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that I continue to hang on to the possibility that he might still be real and wonder whether this is the year I come face to face with Santa at three in the morning as he’s squeezing his way down my wood pellet fire flue. If it is, I shall be asking him what on Earth happened in 1986 when he broke my heart and forgot my politely requested Barbie esque horse drawn carriage (that came with a scaled down chocolate brown stallion that stood tall at16 hands and looked all glossy and strong). I opened up nothing of the sort that Christmas morning. In fact, I opened nothing that I liked at all and cried for hours! Thankfully though Auntie Kath saved the day with something totally cool and with 28 Christmases being celebrated in the Northern hemisphere, the cold, dark winter nights added something special. The possibility of snow, the street lights glowing through the nights, the smell of mulled wine wafting through the markets, it all starkly contrasts the summer warmth of a southern hemisphere Christmas. How wonderful to now relax in the sun and make the most of every minute of the long days and to feast from the barbeque and swim in the sea. Although, ultimately, Christmas is a religious festival that marks an extremely pivotal moment on the calendar of many faiths, it should also be a time for family, for friends and for sharing. A time where you shouldn’t unwantingly be on your own and in my view a time where the normal rules shouldn’t apply. It’s ok to eat too much, to drink too much, to sleep too little, to give heaps and to accept gifts for doing nothing but just being you. That’s what all helps to create the long lasting and happy memories. I feel that it is also ok to loosen the noose around physical activity and to break free from the shackles of guilty exercising and to simply indulge in all the things you can’t get at any other time of year. I don’t think that a visit to the gym on Christmas day should be allowed; in fact I would love to see my own gym close its doors for 24 hours at least. It is a public holiday after all and those days were made for making or being part of long lasting memories.