I Told You So!

Ah, you see – it’s not often that I’m proved to be right but this time, I am. It’s official: Christmas is bad for you. Apparently today, Monday 7th January is labelled as “D-Day” by the forces of our legal profession as they swarm back to their desks after an extended holiday break. The “D” in question is for Divorce. Solicitors cite today as showing the biggest surge in people beginning divorce proceedings and it’s all because of that damned bean-feast known as Christmas. The so-called ‘Festive Period’ is seemingly the peak time for cheating - a fling at the office party perhaps – and provides prime grounds for separation. Throw in family rows, financial worries, and (somewhat churlish, this) disappointing presents, and the boom in New Year divorce proceedings means those lucky blighters in the legal profession will soon have their cash tills ringing.

Add to this that over the Christmas holiday people spend longer periods of time together than normal, so there's more opportunity to argue (what does this say about us as a social species?), plus what one lawyer has described rather chillingly as “the impact of relatives”, and it’s a clear recipe for the fabric of marriage to crumble. Then, with most people making New Year resolutions and thinking more about what they want for the future, there comes even more temptation to boot out 'her indoors' (or him, of course) and start afresh. What a sorry state we’re all in, eh?

What I find so amusing about all of this though, is that at the very time of year when we are all meant to be celebrating what is strictly a Christian festival, one of the basic foundations of Christian life – the bastion of marriage – is being eroded by that very festival itself. Now that’s what I call neat!

I also learn this morning that it’s only five weeks to go until Lent begins. Oh dear, the remorseless grind of the religious calendar never stops for some of you, does it? I wonder which area of society’s slender veneer will be rubbed through by that particular fiasco? Tally ho!