There is no doubt that many people find this time of the year exceptionally stressful. Usually this is attributed to the proximity of Christmas with all the frenetic preparations that go with it, but the fact is that since earliest times this was always a period of the year given over to wild feasts and celebrations.

Going back to the ancient Egyptians (for whom even in the pre-Christian era December 25th was a special festival) and probably beyond, there seems to have been a compelling desire to engage in the most intense of festivities at this time.

But why?

There may be several reasons for this! In the northern hemisphere this coincides with the darkest point of the year. Shorter days and longer nights may have led to a desire to lighten the burden through feasting, but there appears to be a much more potent reason. It is for example precisely at this time of the year that the Sun aligns to the background of the centre of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. This means that the energy of countless thousands of stars is conjoined with the energy of our own star the Sun to produce a short but unique period of heightened Cosmic energy.

This can lead to feelings of poor concentration, mental confusion, and a disposition towards careless or irresponsible attitudes. Add to this an inclination towards irritable, argumentative behaviour with significant distractions and you have all the elements for a very disruptive celestial and emotional period. Essentially this makes it harder to engage in high quality work, and this, allied to the strange perception of time at this point of the year, probably appeared to the ancients as a time that was best suited to festivities rather than important work and decisions at a period that was so unsuited to such activities.

Hence this time of the year has always been given over to fun and the wildest entertainment that has persisted to this very day, and seems to have been adopted purely as a means of coping with the heightened mental stress that this period naturally imposes.