"At home for the holidays." It’s something we’ve said many times, whether we’re heading back to the place we grew up, or hosting family and friends where we now live.

Either way, there’s something about Christmas time that evokes a nostalgia for that sense of home. A feeling of comfort, like pulling on your favourite jumper, knowing that everything is going to be alright.

The New York Times define home as “a metaphor for ease and comfort. When we feel at home in the world, we wear existence like a comfortable sweater; we belong.”

But belonging, in this modern world, is not enough it seems. We run ourselves into the ground, never stopping or taking a step back.Sarah Ayoub, writing for the Guardian, reflecting on Jenny Odell’s book How to Do Nothing, says that by allowing ourselves time spent doing nothing, “we are simultaneously “deprogramming” from modern life – with its intensity and hustle culture – while engaging in a kind of “sustenance”. A necessary break for those of us “feeling too disassembled to act meaningfully”.”

We long to act meaningfully in the world. Somehow that has become synonymous with an endless bustle of work... Instead, embrace being “home for the holidays” and reflect on what it means to be home in the world, and in ourselves...

Allow yourself to feel that sense of ease and comfort that home brings. Act meaningfully. And maybe, curl up in your favourite jumper that brings all these feelings, well, home.