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It's only NOVEMBER!

The extent, and the increasing prematurity, of the Christmas hype really brings out my Scrooge-like tendencies. As if it wasn't enough to start selling Christmas decorations in October and putting the things up in town centres in November, Look North (our local TV news programme) had a live outside broadcast from Keswick this evening of a choir singing Christmas carols! I wanted to shout at the screen "It's 28th November!"

As a sufferer of SAD (Seasonally Affective Disorder) who always feels like going into hibernation from November until early March, I find the whole season quite claustrophobic. We know that Christmas is only four weeks away, so why do we have to be reminded constantly by almost all of the media? All the hype only makes it more impossible for Christmastime itself to live up to expectations. It's not without reason that there is an increase (or, at least, a perceived increase) in suicides around the turn of the year.

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