Be Nice to Them

Be nice to them.

You’ve switched on your Christmas tree lights, the turkey is cooking in the oven, and you’ve settled down with the family to watch a bit of TV before preparing the rest of Christmas lunch. Have you stopped to consider that while you are relaxing with the kids and your partner, someone is working to allow you to do that? The electricity, gas and TV don’t just magically appear.

The obvious ones, such as Police, Fire, Ambulance, Doctors, Nurses, Lifeboat and Coastguard, we are all aware of, but there are others who perhaps we forget.

Are you going out for Christmas lunch, or staying in a hotel? The number of staff involved in allowing you to do that can be surprisingly large.

Railways engineers often take advantage of Christmas Day to carry out maintenance when the tracks are quiet.

The armed forces are protecting our borders, and intelligence services will be working to keep us safe.

Family flying in from overseas on Christmas Day?  Pilots, cabin staff, air traffic controllers, baggage handlers, aircraft maintenance engineers  and airport workers make that possible.

Then there are emergency dentists, plumbers, electricians along with care assistants, nursing home staff, taxi drivers and of course, retail workers, making sure the forgotten batteries for wee Johnnny’s toy are available.

These are just a few of the estimated  900,000 people working on Christmas Day in Britain alone, and the number is on the increase.  We are becoming a 24/7, 365 days a year society and I don’t see that ever changing.

So please, if something is not quite right with your hotel Christmas lunch, or you are having a longer than normal wait in A&E after burning yourself removing the turkey from the oven, remember these people have given up their Christmas Day so you can have yours;  be nice to them.

Merry Christmas to both my readers