Mark Bower column

Christmas is always an enjoyable time of the year for players. Games are probably better attended than normal and there's a good atmosphere around the ground, especially on Boxing Day and at New Year.

The fixture list this year has been slightly kinder to us. There's no hectic spell like having to play two games in three days or any mammoth trips to the likes of Torquay and Yeovil as we've had recently.

But the main thing for us is that we take the opportunity to put points on the board from playing so often in a short space of time and make a move up the league. The table can look very different from now in a couple of weeks' time.

We're due to play teams from both ends of the league, although you shouldn't read too much into the position of our opponents but how we go about those matches.

Peterborough is a tough place to start and people probably won't give us a chance down there. The players they brought in are starting to click now and we probably caught them early on when they weren't quite on the form they are now.

But we've shown that we can beat them and if we can defend there as we have been doing away from home then I feel we've got every chance of doing well.

It's important during this period coming up that we prepare for the games in the right way and avoid the obvious temptations of Christmas - but you don't want football to totally dominate your mind and it's nice to be able to go home and have that little break with your family.

Even though we are playing matches, you still feel you have a proper Christmas. I've got a young son, as well as another one on the way, and fortunately he's too young to be knocking me up at 6.30am to get out of bed as older kids would do.

But we'll have a nice day together as a family - and I'll certainly be eating the right things and keeping myself fit for the games if I'm needed in them.

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