2020 has thrown us so many curveballs. In fact, I think they can only adequately be described as the sort of two-handed lob that catches you out of nowhere when you’re not paying attention and leaves you winded and embarrassed. Like the whole of the UK, I am so desperate to get this year over with and welcome in 2021 that I contemplated putting up my tree in November. OK so I showed some restraint and waited until December, but you know the feels. 2020 needs to – to quote Caroline Hirons’ brilliant collab with Holy Flaps - get in the sea.

And for me, that feeling extends to the festive period. I think given all that has been thrown our way this year, it’s time to dispatch with our bloated Christmas traditions.

Now don’t get me wrong, there are certain things about Chrimbo that I absolutely love. And though I’m not one for a bandwagon, Christmas Markets man, they’re a whole different beast. I want to know what time that wagon is leaving the station, because I will be on it, nay driving it, scratching at any exposed skin under a tacky Christmas jumper and drinking a mulled wine whilst I fantasise about getting my hands on a foot-long sausage.

There’s your arrival at the market, as you are pummelled by a thousand different sensations at once. Your olfactory senses are serviced by the thick-hanging aromas that mingle above your head. Garlic bread with cheese so fluffy you could stuff a pillow with it; the long spicy sausages turning and spitting on the griddle; cinnamon spiced churros dipped in oily chocolate sauce; mulled wine bubbling seductively in a cauldron. The wooden toys swaying jauntily on a Christmassy wind. It is a sensory overload and I’m here for it.

The day I found out that there would be no Christmas Market in Edinburgh was the day I packed up my positivity and unboxed the reality. Without an overpriced mulled wine and a giant, mostly inedible hot dog, I knew Christmas was going to be a struggle that no amount of Bailey’s would fix. We’ve had social distancing work arounds for much of the year, but the magic of Thor’s tipi was never going to transpose for the Covid era. Don’t get me started on the lies I’ve had to tell about Santa and North Pole quarantine.

But here’s my issue. That bit between Christmas and New Year. What is it? What do you do with it? Why does it exist? It’s just a post-Christmas comedown. A crushing low exacerbated by the slight high of Christmas. A period of self-loathing, spent eating an insane amount of unnecessary leftovers and kidding yourself that a glass of Aldi fizz on the stroke of midnight is some potent transformative elixir. And if Christmas didn’t exist, then neither would that strange period. It would just become another period of disappointment and then hey presto! It’s another year!

It would definitely be cheaper. Our waistlines would thank us for it. We wouldn’t have to force a smile over the boardgames and pretend we like the in-laws. And that joy – and the mince pies - we saved could be spread throughout the year. What do you reckon? Are you with me? Or should I retreat to my mountainside cave with a bottle of Bailey’s and hibernate until 2021?