I noticed that many bloggers are counting down the days till Christmas, in much the same way runners count down the days till a marathon. They have countdown tickers on their blog and everything.

There's also an avalanche of posts about how to survive the Christmas holidays and how to make them less stressful...

Is Christmas like running a marathon?

What could this mean? Can Christmas be seen as a marathon? A marathon of being jolly, visiting with family and generally eating a lot? And if so, is it something you can train for? Certainly many of us have been preparing since september for Christmas, if not sooner.

Is Christmas a marathon of the mind, of enforced jollity and family-get-to-gethers?

I can't help but wonder.