Why I love Christmas

My favourite time of year is the period between Christmas and New Year. It's like a week of Sundays. No one expects any work to get done, the streets are empty, the pressure is off. Just getting dressed feels like an accomplishment. Sometimes during this period I will agree to leave the house and meet up with a friend. But only if food is involved. If I'm going to interrupt doing nothing with taking a shower, there has to be an incentive. Conversation isn't enough. That's what the phone is for. It allows me to continue to engage with the outside world without ever having to look in a mirror.

But no matter how much I try to convince people I'm happy not going out, there will always be those who don't believe me. They can't fathom how being alone and staying in is preferable to being with strangers making small talk while at the same time wondering how I'll get home. And that's always the main concern. Getting around is such a deterrent. I would go out a lot more if everything took place in my building. The other day a friend invited me to a Christmas party and I decided to be honest. I told her I didn't want to face the hassle of traveling there and back. "But you travel all the time," she said.

Exactly. The last thing I want is to go outside my two-block radius if I don't have to. Nevertheless, a few nights ago I ventured out to the work party, which was at a venue that couldn't have been further away. Walking to the train, waiting for the tube, taking the tube, walking to the venue, getting lost, and stopping at a newsagent for directions; they could have had the party in Paris and I would have got there sooner. Within the first five minutes of arriving I was already putting into motion the exit plan. I arranged for a pick-up so I didn't have to worry. But then the whole time I was checking my watch to make sure I didn't miss the ride.

Anticipating wanting to leave early, I'd booked the lift too soon. For the first time in ages I'm actually at a party I would have liked to stay at but I can't. I have to leave because the mate's here. This is why I don't go out at the holidays. It's too stressful. On Christmas Day in Australia, there is no public transport. What could be better? Expectations are low. There is no obligation to go anywhere or do anything because there is no way to get around. If only it could be like this every day. No public transport limits the people you see to whoever lives in the neighbourhood. Recently I was on the phone to someone I work with when we discovered we live 15 minutes away from each other. She's around - I'm around - the obligation for coffee hung in the air. "We should meet up," I said. And then, to my delight, she replied: "Nothing personal, but no." She told me she'd rather be alone. Finally, I'd found the ideal friend to have in the neighborhood: someone I'll never see.

New Year's Eve is a whole other story. If you're over the age of 25, unless you're Kate Moss, no one will question your decision to stay home. But this year, I got the perfect invitation from my friend, Lee. The e-mail arrived with the subject heading: New Year Sadsters. "I hereby invite you discerning types to drop in at my under furnished flat on the 31st in the mid or late afternoon.I would arrange for there to be some food.and then you could go. Or stay as you wished." He then goes on to say he might change his mind about meeting at his flat but we could meet at a nearby pub or restaurant instead. And, we can let him know by the 29th. What I found so pleasing about the invitation was the ambivalence. It kind of sounded like he was hoping we'd decline. So with the pressure off, I accepted.

Of course now I'm worried he'll cancel.

The rest of the year has arrived. It's called December

You got a seat on the bus on the way to work this morning: am I right? And there were no queues at the sandwich bar at lunch today. And last night you could get a seat for a movie without having booked two months in advance. Correct?

The explanation for all this is obvious. Everyone apart from you and me is on holiday. But here's the mystery. Even though everyone is on holiday, the cinema is still screening films. There are still people behind the counter in the sandwich bar to slap a slice of ham inside your lunchtime sandwiches and to charge you double by calling them " panini". (This practice is based on the hunch that the Aussie will pay more for things with an Italian name, like Prada, or focaccia, or Monica Bellucci. If the Democrats want us to pay more in taxes they should stop trying to persuade us of the social merits of siphoning more of our income into education and instead just use the Italian word for taxes: " tasse".)

And there are still people stacking the shelves and manning the checkouts in the supermarket. And the trains are still working – not at any respectable level, but no worse than it does at any other time of year, when the largest group of employees is the one hired to mint fresh excuses to explain the absence of any trains. (If you want to buy your child a cheap, noiseless present that's easy to take on holiday without swallowing your luggage allowance, buy him a City Rail train set. When he asks when the trains that you gave him will actually appear, just say they are indefinitely delayed because of signal failure, electricity supply problems, staff shortages and so on. As a present, it's both authentic and cost-efficient.) In short, the country seems to be running pretty much as it always does.

Now, an easy conclusion to draw from this evidence would be that if the country can run during December with, let's say, a quarter of the working population absent from their desks, factories, shops and garages, do we really need to employ quite so many people during the rest of the year? Isn't this – oh dear – a job-cutter's mandate? At first glance it looks like one: but hang on! If we sack a quarter of the workforce, there will be fewer people earning a salary; which means they'll have less money to spend on the goods produced by the company that sacked them. Far from prospering, these companies might find that they are worse off than when they were employing all these apparent wastrels. So, for their own financial self-interest and wellbeing, the companies then rehire them.

But how does any company (and all the employers in a country who, between them, make up the economy) know just how many of these apparent wastrels they need to pad out their payroll in order to achieve this delicate balance – without tipping over the edge and rehiring so many that the company's wage bill swells to the point where its products are no longer competitive? And how does the broader employment market strike the right balance? Luck? Asking an economist would be a quick way of establishing seven possible explanations, all of which might be as accurate as the suggestions in a "Guess Michael Moore's Weight in Cheeseburgers" competition.

This is because economists (economists are people who, when asked by their university careers officer, "Would you like a job where people pay you large sums of money, even when your forecasts turn out to be wildly wrong?" answered, "Yes") seem to mimic the working methods of utility companies. You know how gas and electricity suppliers send you an "estimated meter reading"?

Wait a second! Isn't this the same market that is currently yo-yoing like a drunk on absinthe; sending stock prices soaring one day because everything is going so swimmingly, and the next day sending them plummeting after suddenly deciding that, on second thoughts, things aren't so rosy after all?

So, has anybody got a clue how this curious employment alchemy works? Anyone out there understand what is actually going on? It's enough to make you feel a little anxious, isn't it? Well, you and me, at any rate. Because who else is around to worry?