Ah Twixtmas, that odd period between Christmas Day and New Years Eve where everyone goes a bit loopy. Some people embrace the between-bit by entering into a vortex of eating chocolate on the sofa in front of the TV, but I prefer a good old fashioned existential crisis whilst listening to Charli XCX . The changing of the year is obviously a liminal space, teetering between the old, dying year and the new unknown about to arrive.
Even the name is a little bit arcane, in its portmanteau of the Middle English “betwixt” and “mas” which has its root in Latin. It’s a muddle where time stands still but everything is about to change. We tend to think of time as a straight road rolling onwards, but it’s not always like that.
This Twixtmas feels particularly like standing in a strange doorway for me. A lot of my closest friends are buying houses and having babies – one has even been given a Twixtmas due date, which feels auspicious. I lodge in my friends’ spare room and have tickets to a techno rave on New Years Day.
Partly because January 1st is the “number one date in the clubbing calendar” , per my esteemed colleague, but also because at 32 I appreciate getting all the partying out of my system in time to be tucked up in bed by 10pm. Also, only the deranged or the suburban would attempt to have a good night out in London on New Years Eve itself. But the real oddness of being in this in-between is looking in from the outside at the strange transformation your baby-.