I popped into the shops the other day for a few perfectly ordinary things.
Nothing remotely festive.
And yet somehow I found myself surrounded by mince pies, advent calendars, enormous tubs of chocolates and vast quantities of shower gel and deodorant gift sets. 🤣
Christmas had apparently arrived.
I’m fairly sure November hadn’t even had time to take its coat off.
Poor old November.
We don’t really seem to know what to do with it.
October has plenty going for it. Autumn colours, crisp mornings, pumpkins, leaves, Halloween… 🎃🧛It has a very definite personality.
December certainly doesn’t struggle for attention.
But November?
It can feel as though it’s standing in the doorway holding everyone’s coats while we all talk excitedly about Christmas. 😂
Now - before I get too smug about everyone else rushing ahead, I should probably confess that I’m just as bad.
I opened my diary recently and realised that November seems to be spending an extraordinary amount of its time organising December!
Things to order.
Things to remember.
Things to book.
Things I apparently need to do “before Christmas”.
At this point, November has basically become December’s personal assistant 🗒️.
And once I noticed it, I started seeing it everywhere.
We get to November and almost immediately start looking beyond it.
Counting - how many days until Christmas?
Have we booked this?
Ordered that?
Made arrangements for the other thing?
It’s as though November itself is just something we need to get through before the main event begins.
But I’ve been wondering whether we might be being a little unfair to it.
I’m not suggesting we suddenly need to make November special.
Goodness! That sounds exhausting.
I don’t think November needs us to turn it into another project.
Perhaps it doesn’t need rescuing at all.
Maybe there’s actually something lovely about a month that isn’t trying quite so hard.
The trees have let go of their leaves.
The evenings are darker.
You start putting lights on ridiculously early and wondering how it can possibly only be four o’clock.
Dinner gets a little warmer and heartier (Yes please!)
The big jumpers reappear… and some evenings, staying home suddenly sounds like an excellent plan.
None of this is particularly exciting.
Perhaps that’s the point.
Often, it’s the ordinary things I enjoy most.
A warm kitchen.
Fresh bedding.
Something nice for tea.
A message from someone you love.
Knowing you don’t have to go anywhere again once you’ve closed the front door.
Or - one of life’s underrated pleasures - discovering that something you thought you had to do has been cancelled. 😂
Maybe November simply gives us a little more room for those sorts of things.
We don’t have to make every moment meaningful.
Sometimes it’s enough just to notice that, while we’re busy preparing for what comes next, this is the bit we’re actually living - right now.
I think I’d like to remember that this year.
I’ll still make my Christmas lists.
I’ll still write December things in my November diary.
And I’m certainly not promising to walk serenely past the Christmas chocolate aisle!
But perhaps I won’t be quite so quick to look through November on the way to somewhere else.
Maybe poor old November doesn’t need rescuing after all.
Maybe it’s perfectly happy quietly getting on with being November.
And actually… I think I like it for that.
Breathe & Believe 💫
Lorraine