Hi Lovelies! So today I've kind of taken a day off

from the vlogging... everything

because I just wanted to have a little chill time

But obviously I really wanted to make a video for you because I said I would

everyday and that's the whole point *hmm*

So I thought today, I just have a little sit and talk to you

about something that I think is actually really important

and I've been seeing a lot of in my comments that I really wanted to mention and

I also have something rather exciting which if you're following my Twitter yesterday,

you know there's quite a difficulty in getting

and I will tell you all that at the end of the video.

A lot of you have contacted me saying that you're in a really dark place right now

and that December is making it so much worse, you can't see a way out it just--

that you can't see the future being any brighter.

I think Christmas is something that makes us re-evaluate our lives completely.

It's this constant, a yearly constant, in a sea of buffering change and

the differences in that marker from year, to year, to year can be absolutely painfully manifest,

either because something has changed so much from last Christmas

or because it hasn't and it's just stayed the same,

when you hoped it would be different.

I talked to Claudia about this the other day

and she was saying that the Christmas after her mother died, was one of the ha-

was probably one of the absolute hardest times for that whole year

because it's such a marker of difference and such a marker that someone is missing.

Christmas is a really big family time and if someone isn't there, it's really going to show.

For many years, Christmas for me was also a really, really terrible time

and that's not just because I had bronchitis for five years in a row...

5 years... 5 years

and a little bit of pneumonia as well.

Every Christmas over those 5 or 6 years, passed by in this blur of general phlegm and disgusting-ness

and being too ill to sit up and think

but it was actually the lucid moments that hurt the most.

The first Christmas after becoming ill and being diagnosed

I thought oh, it's just this one Christmas.

It's okay, next Christmas will be better.

Next Christmas everything will be fine again.

It's going to be okay, my life will get back on track

but the next Christmas,

I was still ill and the year had been absolutely horrible.

And it was made so much worse by all of my friends who just come back from their first term at university or

had stories about their gap years and the travels they were about to go on.

I felt miserable and alone, and I wasn't able to do the things that made me happy - you know-

baking...

and Christmas crafts and seeing my friends, going to parties.

I mean I did write some very good fan fiction,

but that's *mmm*...

The next year was the same and the next and the next and the next

and I kept telling myself,

"It's okay next Christmas It'll be better"

not "I'll be better" because by then I had realized that I was not going to get better.

Just that I would be in a different space, a different place in my life,

might've fallen in love and be able to move and leave the house more.

I really wanted to be able to drive!

I just wanted that, to be able to go around and whizz round in my car with my, like, amazing girlfriend

and maybe I'd have a job even or be going to university or be doing something,

I wanted to have a magical Christmas just like in all of the adverts

Because Christmas is always the marker isn't it? It's Oh. "We'll be home by Christmas",

It's "we'll move in before Christmas". "I'll sort it out prior to Christmas!"

I know that not everyone celebrates Christmas

But in England we don't say "the holidays" because that would mean a summer holiday...

not the festive season, so excuse me while I keep on saying Christmas.

It's that sense of Christmas being such a big deal if the year was really bad,

It's "ah you know this year sucked, but Christmas was great, Christmas made it all okay again"

Or even if the year was absolutely amazing, but Christmas isn't good.

It's like "Ugh! the year was okay, but Christmas...

the whole year was ruined!"

I had this idea in my head for all these years of

*oh* what Christmas should be and this perfect ideal that it needed to live up to

and it didn't because in that perfect idea, I wasn't actually disabled.

I didn't actually have any of my problems in my little ideal world.

But isn't that silly? Isn't it stupid that Christmas is the thing that we judge everything by?

I cried and I cried and I cried and I was alone in my room, and I was isolated

and *uhh* it just generally was sad

and it sucked.

So for those of you who ask "are you always happy Jessica?"

Yeah, I kind of am now, but I wasn't always,

especially Christmas.

Time for the happy twist in the tale!

Eventually, I started to look at Christmas as

not something with set things that I needed to follow, but just as an excuse to spoil myself!

A "congratulations" for having made it through the year. I couldn't control whether I had a girlfriend or not,

I couldn't do anything about my brother going to his girlfriend's family for Christmas,

I couldn't bring back my grandparents and have the

magical Christmases of my childhood, where my 40 family members were all under one roof

but I could find parts of Christmas that I really loved and just indulge in them.

If I wanted to take the entire day's energy to make a beautiful decoration above the mantelpiece,

then by golly I was going to do that!

If I wanted to "waste" a day and by the way,

It's not wasting because it's your own energy and whatever you choose to do with it, is not wasteful.

But if I wanted to "waste" (according to other people) the day, decorating the beautiful Christmas cake

because it made me so happy to do so even though

I couldn't actually eat a single thing on it, then that's what I was going to do!

I spent extra money on decorations that I found throughout the year,

the ones that made my heart beat faster

and I thought ah yes, I need that because it made me happy,

and I kept every tradition that my grandparents had ever taught me

Because that was something that was important to me and thus it was important to my Christmas.

Christmas is a really really hard time for an awful lot of people

and that's why I think Christmas should be a time when we actually just give ourselves a break.

So please do yourself a kindness and look after yourself mentally, emotionally, physically.

I don't wanna put you off too much by sounding like a PSA but

please remember that there are people that you can talk to if you're feeling really sad this Christmas.

I'm gonna put some links down below in the description that you can go to,

people who will just listen to you and whatever it is that you're currently dealing with but

but I need you to do a favor for me as well.

Currently, I'm getting a lot of comments on all of my videos and as much as I would love to

be able to reply to every single one and see every one, like there are some that I do miss

and if you see someone in my comment section who is having a particularly hard Christmas,

someone who says that they're really struggling right now,

could you please do me the kindness of giving them a reply

and saying that it's okay, that we're here and that we're listening.

I need you to give them some kind words because it doesn't cost anything

to have an open and loving heart and...

Oh gosh!

[Laughs]

And I know that in my darkest times,

If I could have had someone who could have reached out to me, really would it meant an awful lot!

I didn't have a voice back then, I didn't have any way of communicating.

Really, and there wasn't anyone that I felt that I could talk to you about being sad.

Although there were people that I felt I could talk to you about being happy and

I know it just would have meant the world to me, and that's why I want to give to people

who are in that place that I was.

The smallest bit of kindness can make all the difference, so please help me share some this Christmas,

thank you.

I need a tissue now.

[Laughs and sniffs]

Claudia!

[Laughs]

[Both laughs]

J: Hello Tills!

C: And look Walter's here too!

J: Ahh, family cuddle!

C: Everybody here! I love you *mwah*

[Both laughs]

J: Thank you *kiss* thank you for all these kisses.

I've pulled myself together, got a tissue! It's alright.

[Laughs]

[Coughs]

[Sighs]

And now for the exciting thing that I was going to tell you about that I...

Oooh!

Could guess that was gonna happen knowing Matilda...

...the exciting thing that I was going to tell you about is that finally,

finally we worked it out and I got a PO Box!

[Magical Chime]

Oh my goodness!

It took a lot of struggle.

Got charged three times for the same box and then they wouldn't actually give me the box.

It's okay. It's in the past Royal Mail and I forgive you.

The people that have been asking me for such a long time whether I have a PO Box

and can I please get one, especially since loads of you who make the most amazing artwork

And then asking if you can send it to me and the answer is of course, yes,

I would absolutely love your artwork and now I have a PO Box we can do that and

some people want to send Christmas cards, too...

and I'm very, I'm very touched...

The address is:

Thank you, I really look forward to seeing what you guys send me *hmm*

Now don't forget that I myself am very looking forward to sending out a box of goodies to one of you!

All you have to do to enter the giveaway, is click the link down below to the Instagram post,

which will tell you everything.

Basically just subscribe to me on YouTube,

follow me on Instagram and tag some of your friends in the Instagram post.

It is that easy!

I really look forward to seeing who wins and I really look forward to seeing the amazing things

that I'm sure will be in your cards.

I hope that today's video, even though it's not very "vloggy" has not been let down,

I will be back to vlogmas vlogging type stuff tomorrow.

Sending you lots of love!

[Music: Instrumental version of Joy to the world by Issac Watts and G. Handel]

[Joy To The World continues]