Regular readers may assume that I hate this time of year. The commercialism. The inability to get a seat or pie at Vultures unless you queue. The d*ckheads in Santa hats and Hawaiian shirts. The obligation to talk to (and even spend time with) distant relatives, neighbours you hate, and your partner’s boring work colleagues. And all the time spending ridiculous amounts of money with no chance to actually earn any until after Waitangi Day. There certainly is a lot to dislike.
Fortunately or unfortunately, this assumption would be wildly incorrect. Despite its obvious challenges, I absolutely f*cking love Christmas! I love it in a way that I struggle to explain. To the annoyance of my colleagues, I simply cannot be fazed in the second half of December. I walk around with a sh*t-eating grin on my face for no reason. I obsess over presents, food, and port (which I drink daily, often for breakfast). I say “Merry Christmas” to every shop keeper, traffic warden, and debt collector. I forgive (almost) everyone for (almost) anything. If you want to take advantage of me, now’s the time. ‘Tis the season. Christmas is a drug to me, and always has been. I swear that if I spent Christmas in jail, I still couldn’t sleep on Christmas Eve. Instead excitedly tossing and turning wondering if Big Hemi will like the prison shank I made him and if the reconstituted turkey paste will have cranberry sauce.
There is method to this madness (and believe me, it is madness). Without being “hippy-dippy”, putting out some positive vibes has always seen it returned. I have great Christmases because I give out great Christmas energy. Yes, you can sit at home being a Grinch, and yes, you will have a lame Christmas. What did you actually achieve however? You might not have that many Christmases left. You want to ruin another one? Christmas is a confidence game. If you believe it’ll be great, it really will be. If you build it, they will come.
This year has been one of the most challenging in our industry. Just skimming through the blog topics of the last twelve months, it’s hard to find many feel-good tales of growth or unexpected wins. Instead, we’ve seen firms go bust, brands leave markets, people still being made redundant, and applicant numbers still desperately high. The economy, labouring under a centre-right coalition that would rather argue about irrelevancies and stir racial divide than actually do anything meaningful, has been in stasis. This holding pattern hits hard for us lot. People leave jobs and no one is bold enough to back-fill them. So we spend our days chasing ads, counselling unemployed people, and asking ChatGPT to write inspirational posts about our autistic kids.
However, this isn’t about recapping the year that wasn’t. Remember, this is the second half of December. Instead, this is about taking some of this festive cheer, and applying to 2026. All of it. Markets, after all, are just about confidence; consumer confidence, business confidence. I know I’ve said this before, but I mean it this time: we are genuinely seeing real, tangible signs of growth across almost every market. Maybe it’s the port talking, but 2026 is going to be the year that the tide turns, and we’re going to both see and feel it as soon as we roll, fat and sunburnt, back into the office in January.
That’s it from me for the year. Thanks for hearing me out over the past twelve months. I know I’m not always agreeable, but you wouldn’t read me if I was.
Merry Christmas.
^SW
