A caffeinated christmas

Christmas. It’s a time of joy and peace and elbowing your way through crowds of frantic shoppers to the tune of Snoopy’s Christmas. That much we know. But have you ever stopped to consider the psychological underpinnings of this most wonderful time of the year?

I have.

You see, last Christmas, I awoke to a shocking sight that no child should ever have to experience…

…An empty stocking.

Shock. Disappointment. Confusion.

What could I have possibly done to warrant this bewildering lack of reward?
Ever since I could remember, I had been taught by the authority figures in my life (my parents, the television, and Santa) that if I was good, I would be rewarded. With stuff. It was very simple. Behaviour, reward. Behaviour, reward.
I was Pavlov’s dog and when they started ringing those Christmas bells, I started looking around wildly for my slab of meat.

And the bells were still ringing (louder and longer every year), but the goods had stopped coming! Where was my stuff? Where was my stuff?
It seemed I had unwittingly crossed some invisible threshold and “Santa” (who had just earned himself a nice pair of inverted commas) had made an executive decision to cross me off his list. It seemed I had “grown up”.

In light of this shocking discovery, there was only one thing I could do. And that was to reward myself with the gift I always deserve.

Coffee.

And so this is my Christmas message to you, boys and girls.

When you can’t trust that your stocking will be full on Christmas morning, there is one thing you can always count on.

Coffee.
Santa may abandon you, but coffee will always deliver.
It is the stimulus and the reward.

So this year, I won’t be listening out for sleigh bells in the snow.

This year, I’m dreaming of a flat white Christmas (ho ho ho).