Christmas. Doing it My Way. Cards, Christmas Trees and Cuisine

Special walks in the park, wrapped up, hand in hand.

Following on from my last post, I've been thinking more about what I do, and what Mat and I do, to make Christmas special for us. With six sleeps to go until Christmas I have finally got around to getting organised. Ish. Organisation is difficult for people who have bouts of depression because doing anything at all is an effort, as I've said before. This is one of the most irritating contradictions, because doing things that you enjoy (or would usually enjoy if you weren't under the duvet feeling nothingness or just plain sad) actually helps us sufferers feel better. But once I get going, I can remember what feels good, and talk about them here.

I repeat to myself, especially at this time of year.

So here are some things I've been thinking about this week, about Christmas. It gets to me in the end, you see. There are going to be more things to think about and write about: the wonderful books we can read this season and the films, promised in the last blog post. They'll come. But for now, here are three simple things to enjoy in the season, sad or ecstatic, alone or lonely or in a room of the happiest people alive. Bless us all.
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Mini quiches. A true delight!

Enjoy good food, and share it. I love to cook and use cooking creatively to capture my imagination and my taste buds. Christmas food has so many origins and varieties. Favourites are delectable smoked salmon mini quiches with capers - a magical mouthful of creamy filling, smoky fish and the sharp bite of the caper. (Get the recipe and play around with it with Delia for inspiration.) Mince pies are a naughty treat with their buttery, just-crisp-enough pastry (I recommend Marco Pierre White's Lemon Tart pastry for these; the egg in the pastry makes for an additional richness in the pastry, and the lemon zest complements the mince meat with a zing. If you are at all interested in practising mindfulness, may I recommend it this holiday season.

Mince pies with heart shaped pastry

Here is an exercise in living in the moment: hold your mince pie (or whatever little treat you choose) in your hand to feel the texture of the pastry and its warmth in your hand. Smell the mixture of spices and the butter and lemon. Before you taste notice how the scent and the sensation feels, And when you taste hold the food in your mouth before you chew. If you do this with just one mince pie, one peanut butter cookie, or whatever your holiday treat may be, the magic of Christmas food will come alive in your senses.

My first ever attempt at a gingerbread house. Mat ate most of it - eventually - so can't have been that bad!

Remember the ones you love. I am always surprised and delighted by every Christmas card that I receive. At my most ill they always make me cry because right there when I'm in the middle of berating myself for being ill and useless, someone reminds me that they are thinking of me and Mat, and I am overjoyed by this. And crying because it's overwhelming to feel when you felt nothingness before.

A Sheep,  dressed for the weather, sent last year by a great friend

Writing every card this year has been a treasure for me, despite my faulty elbow (still not fixed, now awaiting a screw to replace the looped wires) and wonky back. I read through the cards I have kept from last year; there are some lovely messages and brilliant designs in that. I also keep cards from friends and family no longer with me - and I remember them with love and sadness, that bittersweet combination.I'll tell you about them sometime.

Thank you Mind for my Brussel Sprout e-card. It's been a pleasure working with you.

Decorate a beautiful home. I heard from a few people recently who are having a hard time at home because of our continuing financial problems as a world, and because of losses and hardships. At times like these it doesn't always feel great to be at home; it can feel more like a prison cell if you're trapped with the ghosts who have replaced the people who used to be there, or the things that were their's. And there are all the other times we don't feel ourselves, or feel ill that home - which should be a haven - feels cold and unfriendly. I felt a bit lost at home the other day. Usually I would have started decorating for Christmas much earlier. We had bought a tree a week ago, but it stood unadorned in the living room because I had not found the energy to decorate it. Yet.

Our Christmassy home. Tree. Baubles. Lights. Done.

I started decorating on Thursday. Mat and I have spent Christmas together for the last nine years. It's the best time together and as soon as the box of decorations came down (with Mat's help since I can't lift much more than a white card star) I started to feel what is our magic of the season.

Our tree by night. Beautiful.

We used to have very little cash to spare, and I was teaching high school children 11-16 who probably had more tinsel and tiaras than I could ever imagine; but I picked some simple white card, some glue and some white and silver glitter, and I made what for me were the most beautiful decorations, decorated just with white lights which blur in the night light.

Simple white stars and now white squirrels keeping them company. The tree.

Now we have a menagerie of small stuffed animals to keep us company; we have Christmas music - him - Wizard and Slade (played only once), me Mariah Carey (well, someone else can sing it!) and Chris de Burgh's A Spaceman Came Travelling.

The menagerie. Wishing you all a happy Christmas.

The star on the top of the Christmas tree is that Mat and I were married near to Christmas. Our wedding anniversary was yesterday. Four years married and nine years together and my best friend and beloved husband and I still feel like celebrating our togetherness. Honestly. He is the best gift of all.

Us on our wedding day. We're shy so we're playing the piano to avoid the cameras.

So that's me in the last few sleeps till Christmas. Tomorrow is our big family reunion, when we'll get together and exchange news and a few gifts. I'm looking forward to seeing the children rushing around the room. Well, I say that. I'm looking forward to it for about five minutes. And then I might have a bit of a headache and Mat will certainly need a lie down. But that's tomorrow, and maybe you'll hear about that next week.

Stay healthy out there. A lovely Christmas week to you all.

Nothing Munch To Worry About: The Serious Cost of Mental illness

Whether he's hearing a scream, or screaming, there's definitely something to scream about

I feel bad about my own worrying. I mean, what do I have to worry about compared to most? Not only do I not have Ebola, but I'm not involved with the Band Aid umpteenth revival.

This week, in creative writing class, we had to write about something which interested us (no prizes for guessing what I chose), and then write a piece about it, using facts we found through research. Below is my offering. I think it's more Comment is Free than me, in terms of style, but I do believe that worrying too much is dangerous. Even if I am a first class worrier. And I'm going to try hard not to worry about that.

"It's snowing still," said Eeyore gloomily.

"So it is."

"And freezing."

"Is it?"

"Yes," said Eeyore. "However," he said, brightening up a little, "we haven't had an earthquake lately."

Worries are something few of us can say we’ve never experienced from time to time. In the past few years, worries have come easily to us Brits more than ever before as uncertainty abounds: the economic situation is insecure; we have – at best – a shaky government. 

At work, redundancies have been common and the future seems less sure than ever, which leads to money worries with little or no job security or secure future for ourselves and our families.

O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew! - Sing it, Hamlet

Those retired from work are, for the first time in many cases, seeing their children in a worse economic situation than they were in themselves as young adults. Things are tough whether you’re eighteen or eighty, but no less so than for the working population, who are juggling national and personal challenges with one very full pair of hands. Knowing this, it can’t be a surprise that this might have affected how many worries the average person experiences, and only a step farther to understand that ongoing worries might lead to illness and absence from work.

In the UK, 1 in 4 people suffer from mental illnesses, myself one of those “ones in four”. Recently, the World Health Organisation has reported that four of the ten leading causes of disability in the US and other developed countries are mental disorders, and estimate that, by 2020, major depressive illness will be the leading cause of disability in the world for women and children[i]. 

Before this year, I had never taken time off work related to depression, despite having suffered from it at different points of my life during the last twenty or so years; when I did take time off work, I sometimes related my illness to other causes or sometimes I worked through my illness despite the debilitating nature of the condition on my sense of well-being. In this I exemplify another statistic: that university-educated professionals are less likely to take time off work when depressed, and, if they do, are reluctant to tell their employer the reason why[ii].

Talking to my friends and family members, it is amazing that the statistic is only one in four. Almost everyone I have spoken to has experienced some period of their life where worry has turned to stress or worse. But I never knew about their illnesses / worries before; and they never knew about mine. We were all keeping one big secret from one another.

Employers are required to support any employee returning to work after a period of illness, and to make what are called ‘reasonable adjustments’ during this time. In the light of our secrecy this is hard to fathom. Personally I just don’t know what a reasonable adjustment should be – maybe don’t mark me down as a failure at my job if my eyes tear up in the office one day? Treat me as totally normal is probably the best thing I can think of.

These reasonable adjustments, though, and more direct action to help workers suffering with some kind of mental illness, are imperative for employers to take action on. In Europe, depression is said to cost workplaces £77 billion annually, with the greatest economic loss coming through absenteeism and lost productivity, according to a recent report by the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and King’s College London[iii]. 

Many employers have publicly taken steps to pledge their commitment to addressing mental health, through signing the Time to Change pledge to end the mental health stigma and by founding the City of London Mental Health Alliance. This is a start – and only a start – to helping employees know that the companies for whom they work want to support them (and this makes sense. It's not as if doctors have an instant cure; partly why there's so much mystery around mental health).

Further, employers are starting to focus on mental health as a priority topic among the other ‘inclusion and diversity’ focuses, and many like my own employer, have set targets to address mental health awareness and support within their own organisations.

None of this stops me worrying – well – a little, but no more, nor enables me to ditch the medication and the therapy for depression in one fell swoop. However, knowing the statistics tells me my employer has as much to be worried about as I do. It must act to resolve its own, similar worries about an insecure future and potential financial loss. It makes economic sense to do so. Organisations and their employees have to work together to keep going amid the uncertainties that we all continue to face. It remains to be seen which organisations (and employees) will embrace the challenge and come through it stronger.

Seriously, though, we need to worry less!

[i] http://www.nami.org/template.cfm?section=about_mental_illness National Alliance for Mental illness

[ii] http://www.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/news/archives/2014/03/WorkplaceDepression.aspx

[iii] http://www.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/news/archives/2014/03/WorkplaceDepression.aspx