Betwixmas for the typs
This is a follow up to my article about why Christmas is hard for neurodivergent people. In this post, you can discover why we neurodivergent folk were designed to smash Betwixmas.
Bless the neurotypicals or NTs as they might be otherwise known. I just called them the typs for the headline. Maybe it will catch on. Anyway. They run around for weeks before the 25th of December getting all bent out of shape with sheer excitement. They run secret competitions with each other on their social media pages telling the world that they have got Christmas ‘all wrapped up’ by Halloween.
By the week before Christmas, the trees they dragged into their homes in November have become part of the scenery. If it’s a real one, all the needles are drying out and dropping off. (Why do you think those strange tree skirts were invented?) Few will admit it, but many NTs are sick of the sight of the glittery things by now. Some are actually itching to get to the next bit of the festive season, also known as the Great Clean-up.
In the meantime, we NDs have been quietly keeping our heads down. Surviving all the expectations, the high drama, the extreme strain on our executive decision-making functions. We know, our time will come.
Christmas passes in a blurry haze of food, drink and too much screentime. An unholy mess of wrapping paper and discarded ribbon ensues — guaranteed to cause eco-anxiety for me. And then. Boxing Day. The 26th December. It dawns silently. The madness of the 25th is no more. The season of Betwixmas starts and what a season it is.
We are released from demands and expectations the world places on us all year round and can come blinking into the light of some downtime. A world where we don’t need to check our emails every five minutes. A world where we can eat weird food at odd times and no-one gives a damn. A world where we can devote literally hours to our special interests or hyperfocus states and there is nothing and no-one to interrupt us.
Now look, I am not claiming these blessings only apply to neurodivergent folk, I am willing to consider the possibility that there are some neurotypical folk enlightened enough to squeeze the joy out of the week of nothingness that is Betwixmas. But many poor NTs suffer during this time. Listen carefully and you will hear soft moaning about boredom. You may see the feverish activity of pre-Christmas morph into more feverish activity. This may show up in shopping in sales, booking summer holidays online, long and pointless walks in horrible weather, car drives to unpopular relatives and trips out to horribly expensive pantomime performances. For some poor NTs, the ennui takes over and they become pinned to their sofas. Depression sets in. Their lives lose all sense and meaning. They long to return to work just to get some different company and some semblance of normal in their days.
Meanwhile we NDs are living our best lives. We can read, game, jigsaw, research, craft, binge on films and boxsets, watch The Nutcracker a thousand times, listen to every single podcast on organisational psychology, get up when we like, go to bed when we’re tired, avoid all social contact. Best of all, as far as I am concerned, the expectations of other people’s routines that we have placed on us all year round vanish into thin air. We are left to our own devices.
Whilst I do not deal at all well with Christmas, Betwixmas truly is my time. If I have a tree up, it stays up until Epiphany. I appreciate that’s stretching the concept slightly. Strictly speaking, Betwixmas only lasts until New Year. But, I like relaxing in semi-hibernation at this time. I love it because it’s the only time away from work when the emails won’t pile up too much. I want to hunker down quietly until I start to see evidence of the light returning and get through the pile of books I’ve set aside.
Why there isn’t a seasonal Disney film featuring gentle flourishing in this quiet time of contemplation, I will never know.
