Why does time speed up towards the end of the year

I really want to understand the phenomena of feeling like I come to the end of every year at ever increasing speed then a dashing sideways skid into Christmas. The blood pressure has been rising steadily since before the APNA move and the 8-10 hours in a working day feel dramatically shorter, the tasks on both my work and at home to-do list is getting longer not shorter. There is something about the not-for-profit and general practice worlds which means that conferences all happen in the October/November period, governments are madly trying to sign off on things announced in May budget and everyone organises meetings to 'finish' the year off nicely.
APNA of course decides to have our Best Practice Awards and Symposium, 2 day board meeting in Sydney, Melbourne PNCE all in November and as a result of all this with the AGPN conference, some meetings in Canberra and Sydney - I will be away from home a total of 14 days this month (7 in a row), and working through 2/4 weekends. Before I know it Christmas will be staring me in the face! All of this means however that we are consistently growing, getting out there and being invited to key meetings etc.
2 weeks ago, I was at Adleaide PNCE which was lovely - the smaller PNCE conferences are always such an energising spending time chatting with members, hearing all your issues and being inspired by your enthusiasm.
Last week I attended a meeting of primary health care experts in Sydney looking at the NHHRC proposed new 'primary health care organisations' - regional organisations who may be charged with a range of responsibilities e.g. coordination of local PHC services, fundholding for services provided etc. While a bit heady and removed from the concrete world of practice nursing, these potential organisations if implemented will change how you are funded, coordinated and other areas of your work.
Last week I also presented at the Practice Managers conference here in Melbourne and manned a booth there where we got lots of questions and interest - many PMs took home bags of our material for their practice nurses. This is an important forum for us to advocate for nursing roles and encourage appropriate salary and conditions, proper management of nursing roles and showcase the great work practice nruses can do.
Finally on a personal note, I have been challenged recently by the developing social lives of my two teenage daughters, particularly regarding alcohol consumption and safe partying. Like most other parents of teenagers, I feel like the rule book has disappeared, it is each parent/s to their own and it is very energy depleting to be constantly justifying our position on drinking and safe partying which may or may not be other parents' view. I have been somewhat shocked by the very casual attitude to alcohol consumption (and we are no wowsers) and in particular binge drinking, and have real concerns about what this means for this generation of kids. The flow on effects to behaviour, risk-taking, and attitude is really confronting. While I know there has been alot of debate about this, I guess until it is your own kids or their friends, that as a public health issue, it does not hit home. I feel reasonably confident that we have got it sort of right in terms of our expectations and navigating our kids to a safe adulthood, but we are pretty informed as parents and there are plenty who are not, as I am finding out. I expect this to become a key issue in primary health care nursing as we move into more health promotion and adolescent health.