NOT TO MISS A MOMENT

Yesterday, when we were playing games after eating, discussing how many layers we would need to wear when taking Pirate for a walk, Margaret said she hated to go to bed because sleeping would end the Christmas holidays more quickly. Others might have thought this strange. I understood it completely. Christmas holidays are a friend of mine.
My love affair with Christmas holidays started long ago, perhaps when I started school, maybe even before that. And throughout my working career it has been my great privilege to be allowed time off around Christmas and New Year’s. My deepest sympathies extend to people who cannot choose to have time off. For them I would gladly permit the closure of stores, and I’d wish for wellness to cut the demands on hospital staff, and I’d wish for strong water and power lines to give utility workers the pleasures I’ve known.
Not everyone loves Christmas holidays the way I do. Others who have the choice say it’s good to work around Christmas and New Year’s. You can get a lot done, they say, with so few people in the office and the phone not driving you crazy. You can get more value for your days, they say, because the powers that be are apt to close the place down early. The logical side of me understands these principles completely. Still there’s nothing logical about my love for Christmas holidays. The experience is unabashedly emotional. So emotional is it that, even though I love working, I start looking forward to Christmas holidays—well, some time in October at the latest.
It’s the mornings I look forward to, dark mornings when the outside lights come on at 6:00 with the automatic timer, brightening our bedroom, and I hear Pirate barking at the newspaper delivery, then turn over to pretend it isn’t really morning yet.
It’s the afternoons I look forward to, walking Pirate in the sunshine. Can it really be –30? Feels like –28, or maybe even –25. It’s the evenings I look forward to, night after night of socializing with family and friends until I think I just cannot stand one more dinner, and then there is yet another dinner. There’s the presents on Christmas morning, and whatever happens New Year’s Eve, and the Boxing Day leftovers. I love it all.
Don’t misunderstand me. Christmas holidays are not perfect, in fact they are far from it. But this is the season when, despite the war and tragedy that annually occupies the newscasts, things seem somehow fixable. There is family tension, always family tension, but there is also good will to mitigate the worst of it. There’s over-eating, so much over-eating, and there are good intentions for weight losing in the new year. There is game-playing, all kinds of games, with a lot of game-losing to help build character. There is cold weather, usually cold weather anyway, and doesn’t that promise to stop the pine beetle from reproducing?
Oh I love Christmas holidays! I’ve tried to explain how much I love them, but Margaret said it better than I ever have. Is it any wonder that Margaret and I just want to stay up, to savour every last hour, even though we really like to work?