Your Hallelujah

One of my favourite things about this time of year is listening to Christmas music.  Over the last few years I’ve really enjoyed Leona Lewis’s album Christmas, With Love, which delivers the perfect balance of fun and lower-tempo songs, originals and classics, and really showcases lots of different sides of her personality and musical talent.  Anyway, one of the slower tracks on the album is Your Hallelujah, a beautiful, emotionally charged song.  I was driving home from work the other day and found myself almost in tears when the song came on, which compelled me to write a few words about the song and what it means to me.

The song, for me, brings absent loved ones to mind.  Not just my own, but others’ too.  In fact, the first time I heard it was around the time I’d found out a colleague had lost his dad.  I didn’t even know the guy that well and he’d probably think it a bit strange if he knew this, but I felt quite affected by the incident and wished there was something I could’ve done to help.  I remember thinking of this guy and his family when the song came on, and now it reminds me of other people whose absence is always felt more at this time of year.

Remembering lost loved ones at Christmas

The first verse and chorus of Your Hallelujah go like this:

Winter's cold, in the light
Somebody's waiting
Feel the warmth, safe and sound now
All the joy, all the fears
You can let go now
Watch the snow gently fall down

Someone needs you
Someone loves you
Hallelujah
Now you're coming home
Hallelujah
Angels calling out to you
You can hear them sing your hallelujah

These lyrics, along with the beautiful melody, strike a chord with me and make me feel a little more connected to those I know who are no longer with us.  I envisage those people at peace, and wish a little that they were coming home as the song suggests.  In my post Save You I talk of a chap I knew who had recently taken his own life, and how I wished, as most of us do in these situations, that he could have known how many people would have begged him to stay.  The lyric someone needs you; someone loves you reminds me that we should always make sure the people around us know how much we value them.

So, at this time of year, I feel it’s really important to tell and show our friends, family, admired acquaintances, inspiring colleagues, and any other important people in our lives, that they are important to us.  That we need them and love them.  And this has also got me thinking of those people who are unfortunate enough not to have any loved ones to celebrate Christmas with.  When I see homeless people in the street, particularly around Christmas, I occasionally sit and have a chat with them as I think sometimes this might be more needed than a few coins or a coffee - well, actually, a chat AND a coffee is my preferred offering! – just to give them a feeling that they are valued; they are needed as much as anyone else in this world.  I hope I’ll find some time this year to spread some festive cheer to the less fortunate members of my local community, perhaps even by doing some volunteering with the Salvation Army or some such organisation.

To sum up, I’m making a big effort this Christmas to make as many people around me as possible feel needed and loved.  Spending as much quality time with friends and family as I can, making sure they know how grateful I am to have that time with them, and extending some of that kinship to those who may be lonely.  I love that by doing this I will be lifting my own spirits as well as that of those around me (hopefully!) and hope that you will all do the same and have a very Merry Christmas :)

Step Into Christmas!

Christmas fun with Miranda

Welcome to my little, What I Call, Christmas Special blog post (Miranda Hart fans will no doubt appreciate this opening :)).  It’s a time of year for joy and fun, food and drink, family and friends, and appreciating all the good things life and the world have to offer.  Of course those of a certain religious status may find it offensive that I’ve said that, but honestly for me that’s what Christmas is and has been all my life; it’s not that I don’t appreciate the religious origins of Christmas, but I don’t have any qualms with admitting I’m not religious myself.  However, I think some of my own values when it comes to Christmas match the Christian ones: it should be a time for forgiveness, thankfulness and peace; this I hope is something we can all agree on, no matter what our religious backgrounds.

As I’ve already hinted at, for me, spending time with family and friends is pretty much the most important thing about Christmas.  In my last post I spoke about mindfulness, about taking more time to notice what’s going on and how I’m feeling in everyday situations.  This had led me to really think about and take note of the dynamics between people in different types of relationships, and at this time of year when many of us come together with family and friends, I thought it’d be fun to note some of my observations on relationships.

The first is that parents can be so mean and unreasonable to their kids!  When I was at the Track Cycling World Cup a couple of weekends ago (see my post That’sHow a Superhero Learns to Fly), there was a dad sat next to me with his young boy.  The kid managed to spill his lemonade all over the floor, and the dad went nuts at him: “you STUPID boy, I can’t believe you’ve done that, you need to be more careful…!!!”.  Many of us can probably remember being shouted at as kids for spilling things, but observing the situation as an

I've noticed parents shout at their kids for the silliest reasons!

outsider I found this guy’s reaction a little absurd: of course the kid didn’t mean to spill the drink and of course he was trying not to spill it (he surely wanted to drink it, after all).  It seems ridiculous that a parent gets so angry with a child for what is clearly a simple mistake that we all make.  He probably wouldn’t have dreamed of shouting at his friend in the pub for spilling a drink, or at his wife if she’d spilt or dropped something in the house!

I had a similar experience today in M&S where a girl walked past a pile of boxes of Christmas crackers and a couple of them fell over.  Her dad: “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?  Pick those up; what have you done?!!!”.  She said it wasn’t her that had knocked them over; I’m not sure whether this was the case or not but even if she had, once again her dad’s reaction was so over the top relative to the situation and the damage that had (or more to the point hadn’t!) been done.

Having a laugh with friends: one of life's true joys!

My next observation is how within pairs or groups of friends, you can say and do things which would be completely meaningless or plain weird to an outsider but make perfect sense to you and your friend.  Of course this is the case with in jokes, which we always have to be careful not to use out of context: as a result of a habit of one of my best friends from uni, who I lived with, several years on I find myself tempted to say “good luck; don’t miss” every time someone informs me they’re off to the toilet!  Another great one is how me and another of my best friends from uni can have the following interaction: Me: “Umm…” Her: “Yeah” Me: “Ok” Her: “Cool” and we’ve genuinely had a meaningful conversation with a tangible outcome.  Brilliant!

Another thing I love about friendship is how there are some people you don’t see or even speak to for months or years, and when you do get together it’s like you were never apart.  Believe it or not, until a couple of weeks ago I hadn’t seen either of the girls I live next door to properly for well over a year!  In my defence, myself and one of the other girls had both been living elsewhere for quite a bit of that time, but even so, there’s no excuse for us not seeing each other for so long!  But the amazing thing about my relationship with these girls is that we’re almost like family: I’ve lived in this house (on and off) for twelve years (that’s half my life, since I was twelve years old!), so we’ve kind of grown up together, and undeniably been through a lot as a group.  So when we do see each other we have a lovely time and chat for hours and hours, which makes all the time apart worth it.  Lovely.

We should be kind to ourselves at Christmas without stressing about work or stidies

At this special time of year, I’m making an extra big effort to really appreciate my family and friends.  I’m fortunate enough to have a couple of weeks off work so I really have a lot of time to spend with them, and I’m using mindfulness (see my previous post!) to make the most of it.  Something else I’m using Christmas as a good reason for is simply being kind to myself, which is something I think most of us overlook, not just over the festive period but all year round.  I don’t just mean looking after ourselves by eating healthily and exercising (I’m the first to admit this type of thing largely goes downhill for me over Christmas!) but treating ourselves in a friendly and compassionate manner (for instance not feeling bad about exercise and eating going out the window for a few days!).  Many students, particularly at this time of year, will know the horrible situation of being constantly in one of two less-than-enjoyable states: either studying, or feeling guilty for not studying, which leads to never feeling truly relaxed.  It’s important to schedule in recreation and leisure time whatever else you’ve got going on, and to make sure you switch off those feelings of guilt and really enjoy relaxation time to the max.

Essentially what I’m saying is, the way I see it, Christmas is all about truly enjoying yourself and appreciating life (not that you shouldn’t do this all year round!).  This might mean making some alterations in order to achieve this.  For example, going back to my observations about dynamics between families and friendship groups, if you start to notice certain things that are positive and negative about your own relationships you’ll appreciate the good bits more and have some insight as to how to change the negatives.  Come to think of it, the same can be said for any aspects of life: the more you are aware of your feelings, thoughts and surroundings, the more you can learn about what you need to do to improve your life, and which bits don’t need improving because they’re already good!

To conclude, I want everyone to have a great Christmas and New Year period, and hope for some this post will provide some helpful tips for maximum enjoyment, or at least makes for a good read.  One final tip I’d give is don’t try too hard to enjoy Christmas.  I’ve been guilty of trying to force myself to enjoy things on occasions and it just doesn’t work.  Instead, focus on consciously noticing and being aware, and enjoyment and happiness will naturally follow.

Thanks as always for reading; please make my Christmas extra special by sharing my blog to help to boost my readership .  It’s here to be read by as many people as possible after all; that’s why I write it!  And finally, I’d like to wish all my readers the merriest, happiest and healthiest of Christmases.  Eat, drink and be merry! 

"The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring"
Oscar Wilde