Christmas wellbeing check! I'm using the standard festive stress diagnostic tool, otherwise known as the "seasonal scream scale".
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Please rate your current levels of chill from zero to ten, with zero being "Frosty the Snowman" and ten being "Ebenezer Scrooge" (just after the second ghostly visit).
I am way beyond Scrooge. I'm a bauble that fell off the tree.
A stocking with a hole in the toe. I am Rudolph with a nose that won't light up, because it ran out of batteries.
Sounds like you've fallen victim to this year's biggest Christmas epidemic after Omicron.
What's that? Meltdown?
Nope. Expectations. After two years of cancelled fun, we're all far too invested in this festive season.
Hopes are high - and the stakes are even higher. We're so desperate for 2021 to deliver on the good times deficit, we're bound to crash and burn.
I hear you. If I see one more Instagram post of a celebrity family in matching Christmas pyjamas, it's meltdown time.
Why are they even doing that? Hasn't everyone had enough of pyjamas this year?
And when did matching paper hats stop being enough? It's time to break out the stressbusting strategies.
I guess this is where you tell me to live, laugh, love.
Don't be ridiculous. This is Christmas.
What have you got for me, then?
Just some failsafe common sense. Don't abandon your healthy habits. Whether you like to walk, run, ride or swim, don't stop. These are your happiness bedrocks. Same with sleep.
We've all learned loads this year about using "sleep hygiene". Now is the time to practice it. Breathe properly, from deep down in your belly.
And while nobody's going to deny your right to smash the pud and the mince pies, back up the banquets with some veg.
Eat the cherries because of the antioxidants. And remember, water is a free and legal performance enhancing substance.
Don't you have just one catchy mantra I can stick on the fridge?
As a matter of fact, I do. "Let go and say no".
Your best route to a chilled Christmas is to ditch the sky-high expectations, and don't let others burden you with theirs.
Especially if they involve matching pyjamas.
See you on the other side, Frosty.
