Much of our Christmas joy is tied up with the fun of preparation – decorating the tree, buying presents or a new dress and hearing “Fairytale of New York” on the radio for the first time. We set aside our cares to enjoy the festivities – except this year, it’s going to be very different.

The unthinkable has happened. Our world of instant everything has ground to a halt and we are forced, temporarily at least, to revert to a pre-post-postmodern way of living. This year we may have to conjure up Christmas magic in a whole new way. Let’s start with the basics and take it from there. The essence of Christmas is a celebration of love. Whether Christmas is religious or secular for you, the thing we are all celebrating is love. Infused in all the rushing and shopping is our desire to let people know we love them. Spending time choosing presents and wrapping them up with pretty ribbons and bows is an expression of our love. Enjoying a carol service or Midnight Mass is an experience of love. When we sit by the fire and clink glasses of wine we’re saying, I love you.

Even though we have to do Christmas differently this year we already know we don’t want to meet on Zoom for Christmas drinks, we don’t want to play cards online with our cousins. We’re done with socialising online. And we don’t want to string coloured lights across our laptop in a sad effort to make the online office party feel festive.

The challenge is to find creative and maybe even richer ways of expressing, sharing and celebrating our love this Christmas. And it may even turn out that there is a gift in this enforced slowdown of life. Maybe we were living too fast and too free — and maybe in the razzle-dazzle of Christmas cheer some of us were lost and didn’t actually feel the love. Maybe we were trying to express Christmas love in a way that wasn’t really true to us.

Looked at philosophically, there is a gift in this slower pace of life because it invites us to find even better expressions of love than usual, and not just for those close to us, but for our own selves too. People have always turned to philosophy for consolation in times of trouble, for the deeper meaning and wiser perspectives that it offers. One particular insight offered by Aristotle 2,300 years ago gives invaluable comfort, guidance and wisdom for all that we are living through today.

Aristotle was the first to distinguish between the different reasons we do the things we do. On the one hand, he saw that there are things we do for their own sake and which are an end in themselves. On the other hand, there are things we do as a means of reaching some other goal. Not surprisingly, Aristotle valued the former over the latter.

Taking our cue from Aristotle, let’s try a different approach to preparing for and celebrating Christmas, so that the focus is on doing things for their own sake. Traditionally our Christmas preparations are in service to others: we want to spread love and make other people feel good. What we do is not an end in itself but it is to make someone else happy. Beautiful as this sentiment is, this year the circumstances of life really invite, if not demand, that we place our gaze closer to home, and even on our own selves.

We’re not comfortable with the idea of lavishing love and attention on ourselves, but I’m not talking about a selfish kind of love, I’m talking about a better, nurturing kind of self-love. Because maybe the very thing missing from the world today is that not enough of us know how to love ourselves well enough. Aristotle’s wisdom invites us to look at our self-care in a new way, as an end in itself for how it benefits us to feel more grounded in love. The truth is, we cannot actually love anyone else until we can truly love ourselves first. And in loving ourselves better, we can love others better too.

If Christmas is all about Love, then how about seeing this slowdown as a gift? How about using the time to nurture ourselves with a better class of self-love such as a mindful walk in the woods, some me time to meditate. How about this Christmas we make a manger of our hearts and welcome love to live and to grow in us so that when we do jump back to post-post-modern living (if we still want to) we do so from a whole new place of love.

As you string pretty fairy lights across your mantelpiece, pop some Aristotelean wisdom into your Christmas stocking.

Aedamar is a writer and philosopher. Her new book Light on Fire: Waking up to Divine Love (Hay House), is available for pre-order on Amazon or with a free gift at www.aedamarkirrane.com/book.