The left-overs

So now the big day has passed and we're stuck with the left-overs.  In real life these can be pretty uncomfortable for us, and they also make good material for our characters.

What sort of left-overs do your characters have to deal with?  Do they have the realisation that the relationship they've staked everything on saving over Christmas has to end?  Or perhaps they managed to get off that excess weight during the year and have now put it all back on again.  

Or perhaps their left-overs are unfulfilled dreams from last New Year.  When we make our resolutions on the first day of the new year we're full of hope that we'll achieve them, but often we don't.  But what if those resolutions were a series of tasks set your character and he /she has to complete them by the end of the year to prevent some dire fate befalling them? 

The left-overs could be old friends our characters have outgrown, but don't have the guts to say goodbye to, or left-over habits that dominate their lives.  For an ex-alcoholic who wants to stay clean, Christmas is a tough time.  The left-over drinking memories must rise again, but will your character remember the happy or the bad ones?  

So when you're tucking into your left-over turkey for lunch today, keep an eye and ear out for other kinds of left-over to fuel your stories into the New Year.