Happy Twixtmas.
You read this smack bang in the middle of the Christmas Day festivities and the new beginnings of 2026. That said, my family and I are today celebrating our Boxing Day as given we are made up of shift workers and those with partners who spent the big day elsewhere, we celebrated Christmas yesterday. This is quite normal for us as, for example, last year was the first 25th of December my daughter, a nurse, had off since she qualified in 2018.
Anyway back to this strange hinterland that we now find ourselves in. There can be no other week in the year that feels as fuzzy as this one. The fridge is full of leftovers, the TV planner is crammed with seasonal favourites we vowed to watch but probably never will and most people are running on limp mode.
The term Twixtmas originates from at least the 17th century which indicates that, unlike so many things that baffle me these days, it’s not a modern phenomenon but has been a source of bewilderment since the 1600s. It can feel like the longest week of the year and for some it might feel endless as they’re waiting to go back to work.
For others who embrace the break it might whistle by. Whichever group you fall into though, all sense of time can be skewed with no identifiable weekdays or weekends and people consult diaries and calendars as if they are ancient texts revealing mystical truths.
When I was in the police, for some departments this week was business as usual, or worse, as people will always need the blue light and health services all the year round. In other units who didn’t provide an emergency service, it provided a window into colleagues’ private lives when the requests for leave and days off started filtering through around about October.
I could put money on those who would play the hero and offer to cover the office between Christmas and New Year. It was always the same people; those who I knew couldn’t bear to be holed up in the house for the dreaded last week in December when they could use the excuse to their loved ones that, ‘somebody needed to be in’ and shrugged that, ‘it was my turn again this year,’ promising to take it off next time. They never would.
Others would whack in time off requests early, hoping for yet another two weeks break from which they would return irritatingly refreshed and usually, by then, hangover free.
In folklore this week was seen as liminal – the threshold between the old and the new. People believed that ghosts and spirits wandered more freely, that dreams during this time were prophetic and that you shouldn’t start major new tasks. I like to embrace the last piece of advice well into March.
The temptation this week, once all the games have been played (or the arguments have necessitated them being returned to the cupboard for another year), the variations on turkey recipes exhausted and the duty visits to or from friends and family are over is to start concocting plans for the new year.
Resolutions are set, despite them having absolutely no chance of surviving beyond mid-January. Lists of jobs are written and then conveniently lost and gym memberships are purchased with little chance of them resulting in the intended body beautiful by summer. Given the calendar-skewing routines we are used to, our Twixtmas tends to fall between now and my wife’s birthday in the first week of January, with New Year providing a highlight midway.
For us it is different every year as various family members return to or continue work, one of my sons has football commitments and I habitually default to the task of reorganising the fridge and freezer to store the ludicrous amount of leftovers which is the inevitable consequence of my over-shopping and, I will always maintain, my family’s failure to gorge themselves sufficiently to match my generous provision.
Whatever this strange week and coming year brings for you, may I take this final opportunity to thank you for reading my and the other columnists’ articles during 2025, to hope you’ve had a very happy Christmas and to wish you a joyful and fulfilled New Year.
I am not sure me slavishly applying for delay repay will solve the rail reliability crisis for the nation, but I’ll keep trying.
I originally wrote this for my weekly column in The Argus, published on Monday, 29 December 2025.
