Happy christmas

Happy Christmas everyone! With a week to go I am preparing to stop work and plunge into the Christmas spirit. Unfortunately, the painting I'm working on is proving difficult to leave; it is at a tricky stage and is not quite right, but I don’t know what I need to do to resolve it. I know I should turn it to the wall and forget about it for a while, but instead I keep picking at it like a scab! Is it the colours? The composition? The tones? I DON’T KNOW.
Sometimes painting is like a puzzle and one elusive thing will pull it all together, but sometimes it is a lost cause and best painted over. I am at the stage where I am not sure if I should battle on or admit defeat. Psychologically I need it to work, because it is the first of 35 paintings for an exhibition in the summer; the first painting often sets the tone for the whole show and (I like to think) if I can get one cracker under my belt the rest will follow without too much of a struggle. One more day and then I will leave it until after Christmas (maybe three days of overeating and drinking will trigger some sort of inspiration)...