Sorry if not allowed to start a discussion, but as we approach Christmas, wondered what people write over the holidays?

In your creative life… otherwise we’d all answer emails!

I avoid it for the most part, although not for any strategic reason... Although I'm tempted on occasion. I would love to know the stance of others here, their reasons and (for those that work on multiple pieces) experiences.

It was the boy, Jakob, who saw it first, as he skipped across the bridge on his way to school. A flutter of red cloth at the edge of the breaking ice, as the water in the slowly thawing river began to flow. He remembered that his classmate Mikkel had lost his scarf in a gust of wind, crossing the bridge some months earlier. He would show him on the way home. Perhaps they might even be able to recover it from its watery resting place.

My sister and I are the only two surviving children of nine. (I think it was nine. It may have been one or two more. Or less.) Some of us died shortly after birth. Some lingered a little longer only to be felled by some ague or fever. One (the first Jack who lived before I was born) fell into the Thames from the attic window. Only Beth and I had lasted to an age where adulthood looked likely. I’d been apprenticed to my father. I was destined to become a master printer and inherit his shop on London Bridge. Beth remained unmarried.