“Have yourself a merry little Christmas, Let your heart be light, From now on our troubles will be out of sight…”

Those words are enough to make the icicles melt on even the coldest of hearts. We feel all wholesome and warm, thankful for another year been and gone… but also maybe a bit sick.

The truth is that ‘the most wonderful time of the year’ mostly just doesn’t live up to our heady expectations anymore. Of course, we still smile and put on rubbish paper hats and watch the same festive films on a loop. But underneath Primark’s tackiest Santa sweaters many of us are filled with a nostalgia-drenched dread that only Christmas can induce.

Obviously there’s nothing like the unbridled joy of a kid on Christmas Day, running down the stairs at five in the morning, flinging open the living room door to find if the big man has been; everyone wishes to feel that level of happiness. Only then you remember you’re 21, with a degree to complete and unemployment seeming inevitably on the horizon, and the magic comes crashing down around you. All I want is to return to being six years old, rushing in to find that I’d been left a Wii console and nearly bursting with excitement. It was the best Christmas ever.

In reality, the same kinds of issues we face in life now were always there, even when we weren’t aware of them. In fact, the very year I got my Wii my parents were undertaking major house renovations during the brutal 2008 recession, so while hilariously my biggest concern was whether I’d beat my brother on a round of Wii Sports bowling (of course I did), they were braving the harsh reality of the world.

Sadly, as we have grown up, now we are too. No longer are we enveloped in the warmth of our primary school classrooms, making glittery monstrosities to proudly hang on the tree when we get home; instead we’re counting down the days until the end of semester exams begin and reminiscing on better times gone by. At times it really does seem more ‘bleak midwinter’ than ‘joy to the world’, but surely it can’t always be like this?

I say this year we need to embrace our inner child. Throw caution to the wind – sing along to the Mariah Carey classic like your life depends on it. Wear the embarrassing festive socks your mum bought you with pride. Eat all the chocolate you could ever want without ever for a second feeling guilty about it. Because who says Christmas can’t still be magical? Of course, things aren’t the same as when we were kids, and we can’t help that real life sneaks in the way sometimes, but let’s not lose sight of what these festivities really mean: being with people near and dear, whoever that is, and having fun.

Naturally Christmas can be tinged with sadness for the people and things loved and lost over the years, but we shouldn’t stop ourselves from enjoying it just because we don’t have the rose-tinted wonder of a child anymore. We can create our own forms of magic, and if that now happens to involve a bottle of wine, then so be it! There’s enough darkness in the world that we should be allowed to embrace some designated unashamed down time, even if just for a few days. And maybe rather than stressing about buying for all the family, maybe the best gift we can give this year is to ourselves: let’s feel that jingle bell joy again.