Studies have shown that knowing our 'character strengths' and using them regularly boosts our happiness. If you know your enneagram type you already have a head start with self-awareness and should be able to identify your strengths more easily. I've linked the 9 types with nine of the 24 strengths from the VIA classification (click to learn more about strengths and Positive Psychology).

1: Self-Regulation
Regulating what one feels and does; being disciplined; controlling one's appetites and emotions.

2: Kindness
Doing favours and good deeds for others; helping them; taking care of them.

3: Perseverance
Finishing what one starts; persisting in a course of action in spite of
obstacles; “getting it out the door”; taking pleasure in completing tasks.

5: Love of Learning
Mastering new skills, topics, and bodies of knowledge, whether on one's own or formally; obviously related to the strength of curiosity but goes beyond it to describe the tendency to add systematically to what one knows.

6: Teamwork
Working well as a member of a group or team; being loyal to the group; doing one's share.

7: Zest
Approaching life with excitement and energy; not doing things half-way or half-heartedly; living life as an adventure; feeling alive and activated.

8: Bravery
Not shrinking from threat, challenge, difficulty, or pain; speaking up for what is right even if there is opposition; acting on convictions even if unpopular; includes physical bravery but is not limited to it.

9: Humility
Letting one's accomplishments speak for themselves; not regarding oneself as more special than one is.

If each enneagram type were to write a pop song for Christmas, what would it sound like? The following list might give you an idea. Although the singers might not correspond to the type, the lyrics do.

1. Little Drummer Boy 
I found One the most difficult type for this list. However, this song shows the little drummer boy sets himself  high standards  ('I played my best for him,') and this lovely version by Bing Crosby and David Bowie has extra lyrics that with high standards for others too ('Every child must be made aware, every child must be made to care'.

2. Do they know it's Christmas?
The choice for the Two has good intentions but its understanding of others' needs is out of touch with reality. Africa is apparently a place, 'where nothing ever grows, no rain or rivers flow.' Who did the research for this exactly?

3. The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)
'Folks dressed up like eskimos', 'Tiny tots with  their eyes all aglow', 'Yuletide songs being sung by a choir'. This Threeish song is firmly focused on a picture-perfect Christmas, and Nat King Cole's delivery is very posed and polished.

4. River
Joni Mitchell is a Four, and her song is melancholy, emotionally honest as well as being  a unique artistic expression of a frosty season. 'I wish I had a river I could skate away on...' 

5. I Believe in Father Christmas
The Five's song is all about knowing the truth about Christmas, not blinding believing what you are told and superficially going along with the commercial aspect. Fives are naturally inclined to have a perspective that is different from that of the masses. 'They sold me a dream of Christmas...'

6. Santa Claus is Comin' to Town
The choice for a Six shows a heightened awareness of authority, ('He sees you when you're sleeping'), of following rules ('You'd better not cry, you'd better not pout') and of being either 'bad or good'. I like Bruce Springsteen's (who is a Six apparently) version but you have to skip ahead a few minutes on this video to get to the music.

7. I Wish it could be Christmas Every Day
This immediately came to mind for the Seven's Christmas song: fun, colourful, greedy and hedonistic.  The video says it all (even the title does!).

8. Fairytale of New York
Like Eights, the characters in this song tell it like it is (He: 'I could have been someone. She: 'Well, so could anyone!') and are not afraid of a confrontation (She: 'You're a bum, you're a punk.' He: 'You're an old slut on junk'.)  

9. Driving Home for Christmas
Nines are all about going with the flow, which is perfectly expressed in this lovely, peaceful song about being stuck in traffic at Chistmastime but not getting annoyed about it. 'It's gonna take some time, but I'll get there.' 

Another timely collection of images from Walter Suleyman!

Created by Walter Suleyman, this is a haunting but beautiful collection of images. A place may be abandoned but the enneagram 'ghosts' still linger.

American culture is often typed as an Enneagram Three.  When you look a little more closely, however, you see a different story.

Explaining the enneagram to children can be made easier when you realise that all fairy tales contain examples of the enneagram types. Here's a few to start you off.

It's the most wonderful (and Enneagrammy) time of the year.

Merry Christmas!