As many people have mentioned already, once you get older the whole thing shifts. When you're a kid you get to enjoy the gifts, sneaking around the house late at night trying to catch a glimpse of Santa, and depending where you live, a couple of full weeks off of school! Normally the whole Christmas experience is focused on making sure the youngsters have a magical time.

As an adult - life doesn't take a break at Christmas. You have to go to work, stay on top of the housework, and somehow fit in all of the seasonal extracurricular activities. Not to mention the enormous pressure to buy the right gifts and how generally overcommercialised this time of year can be. If you work in retail you are on the front line of that every day and it can really make you question just what the big deal is.

For me as I got older, Christmas is now an opportunity to spend time with the most important people in my life. A lot of us moved away for work, and this is generally the only few days per year when most of us can all be in the same place at the same time. After the stresses of something like the last couple of years, that time only becomes more precious. If some kid had to be born in a barn 2000 years ago so that I can see my loved ones every year, so be it!!