We are in the no-man’s-land of time.
Between Christmas and New Year’s, life is just different. We float along easily, cheerfully, lightly in this period of rest or fun. There are no obligations and very little markers of time.
Oh yes, we may go to work, but for many jobs, the days are easier. There aren’t a whole lot of expectations for the last week of December.
Even if there were hopes of accomplishing something in the office, there’s hardly a leg to stand on to do so, since so many employees are out on vacation anyway, or juggling their schedules to accommodate their kids off school.
We do the bare minimum to get by. A lot of what there is to do was done ahead anyway, and for the rest, customers aren’t so picky this week. They can wait until next week, or even the week after, for what they need. Customers and clients far more cheerfully accept the excuse that it can’t be done this week than they would at any other time of the year.
Of course, this ease doesn’t apply to those who work in retail. Working in a store must feel like being in a madhouse at this time. First, there’s the mad rush to get rid of the Christmas merchandise, whether by storing it away somewhere else, throwing it away (’tis the season for dumpster-diving behind stores – just don’t get caught! That would be embarrassing) or, perhaps more commonly, immediately rushing out with the 50% off and 75% off stickers.
And our sympathies are extended to those who work taking customer returns on those gifts that weren’t what they were hoping for.
But even if your job is quite busy this time of year, your nights are more than likely free.
No organization dares schedule an after-work meeting this time of year. For once, we can go straight home to our families each weeknight and make a proper dinner without rushing about.
For those with kids, blissfully, there are no dance classes, no band practices, no music lessons, no club meetings to rush off to. Your nights that normally end at 9 p.m. (perhaps with hungry kids still demanding a hot dinner) are both a mere memory, and a burden being more and more dreaded as we get used to this rare free time, knowing we’ll lose this comparable comfort in the second week of January.
And unlike Christmas, New Year’s is fairly free of obligation. Sure, there may be a party to go to, and you may even be hosting that party.
But it is not nearly as involved as everything Christmas demands – a constant whirlwind of shopping and wrapping and decorating and cooking and hosting and serving.
Of course, all that decorating needs to be undone and stored away, but whether you waste the glory of a three-day empty weekend on that or not is up to you!
Hats off to the three-day weekend that stretches ahead, our last taste of the otherworldliness that marks the holiday season.
