Welcome to the Christmas season, depending on your circumstance, it can be one of the most challenging or exhilarating periods in a person’s life. It is usually different strokes for different folks. Since it comes at the end of the calendar year, it is a period when people take stock of their achievements during the year. While some are eager for Christmas to arrive, others wish it will be postponed to give them more time to prepare. Do not be competitive and do not over stretch yourself, go at your own pace and if you want more, work harder but be content with what you have at every point. Whatever your lot, be grateful for life, family, health, money, power etc

For married couples and those in relationships, it is a period of high expectations, from the shopping sprees to the expensive dinner dates, from exotic holidays to spa getaways, it all boils down to the same thing, MONEY, GOOD HEALTH AND PEACE OF MIND. It is relatively easy for some people to breeze through this period, able to cushion the huge debits, they are not under pressure to provide or perform. For others it is a different story, the season comes with so much stress from their inability to provide and meet the expectations of their loved ones. My advise is this, If you are unable to provide as expected do not over think or stress yourself, you just have to review your strategies and go back to the field, it will be better next year.

Christmas comes once every year, there is no hurry, some of those who are enjoying the season today may have had it rough last year, and some who had plenty may have nothing today. Life is a cycle of seasons, wrought with bad and favourable weather, ups and downs, these are inevitable, it is the support and understanding you have from friends and family that propels you through it all. Be careful not to mount an unbearable unbearable amount of pressure on your loved ones, work with what they have and be sure not to stretch them to breaking point, asking for what a partner can not provide breeds contempt. January May be more brutal if you do not plan ahead with them, be wise, be prudent be reasonable.

Support your spouse or partner in their struggle and be sure to remind them of the need to prepare for the new year, school fees, rent, Medicals when they want to do things you know they can’t afford for your sake. Assure them that you will walk with them through the storm until you emerge together triumphantly into fair weather. If you have enough to support them please by all means do so. Stress kills, you will always be better with them alive rather than dead. If you can afford the luxuries of life, spoil your spouse without any iota of reservations, there is nothing as fulfilling as knowing that your spouse is well taken care of and happy.

Finally if you have been blessed, remember to share with the less privileged among you, be generous to your friends and family, sow a seed of love, you may one day eat from the harvest of the seed of providence you have sown in someone’s else’s life. Approach the season with thanksgiving and a grateful heart, do not look down on anyone, it is not by your power or might, wealth is a blessing from God, the easiest way to thank God is by being a giver, God loves a cheerful giver, the blessed assurance will cover you in your own time of need, which much surely come one day. Once again I wish you all a merry Christmas and prosperous new year in advance – Sir Stanley Ekezie