The Week the World Takes Off

The week between Christmas and New Year’s is the best week of the year.

The stress of the holidays is over. The new year is still a week away, as are all the plans, promises, and obligations we will have or impose upon ourselves.

The world seems to slow down, to take a break and a much-needed deep breath before the next year starts and we return to business as usual.

Many of us are on vacation. We get a chance to relax, possibly for the first time all year.

We get the chance to stop and simply be. To reset before we refocus for January 1st.

It’s the week I look forward to the most each year.

As a kid, the week after Christmas was always the best week of the year, save maybe for that first week of summer break. It was a chance to play with the new toys I’d gotten for Christmas.

To hang out and read for fun, as opposed to slogging through the assigned reading during the school year.

It was a chance to hang out with friends outside of school on a weekday! Man, it was a sweet added bonus during our time away from school.

As I grew up, graduated from high school, and began working, the week after Christmas was still something I looked forward to. I survived five holiday seasons working retail. That week leading up to Christmas was always a nightmare. Extended store hours. Nearly double the number of customers each day. Stress and exhaustion were my constant companions.

Plus, at the time, I was also a full-time college student. I was having to budget time for homework and studying for finals.

The ongoing sleep deprivation and lack of recovery time made me irritable.

Actually, that’s putting it too lightly. I was frequently angry, mood-swingy, short tempered, and generally an asshole for most of December. Some years, I’d work myself sick, causing my performance in school and at work to decline.

The week after Christmas was my time to recover, to reclaim my sanity and get some much-needed rest. Sure, I still had to work, but often, things slowed way down. That week leading up to New Year’s was usually fairly slow, or so it seemed in comparison to the week prior.

I was in between semesters. Without the burden of classes and schoolwork, a 45+ hour work week wasn’t so bad.

I had time to reconnect with friends — something that so often goes by the wayside when we’re busy being responsible adults.

More than that, I had time to take a break without feeling guilty about it.

Sadly, so many of us are bad at taking time off. I know I am.

American culture is largely defined by staunch and stoic workaholism. If we’re not working, producing, creating, we’re not doing anything of value. Moreover, many of us feel guilty taking time off because we feel someone else is getting ahead while we’re falling behind. And sure, it might lead to stress-related health issues like strokes, heart-attacks, and premature death, but we’ll be remembered fondly for our contributions to the fields in which we toiled…won’t we?

One reasons I look forward to this week so much is it’s one of the few times I allow myself some time off.

Since the onset of the pandemic, I’ve worked a patchwork of jobs all while furiously pursuing a writing career. When I’m not coaching, teaching, writing grants, etc. I’m working on novel projects, short stories, and blog posts. It feels like all I do anymore is work. This is partly because I love writing and I have aspirations of making a living solely through my writing. It would be a dream come true.

But I haven’t reached that point yet. So, I spend most of my “free time” working toward the goal of being a full-time writer.

In talking about the music industry, Cypress Hill once said “It’s a fun job, but it’s still a job.”

This can be said about any creative pursuit through which we strive to earn a living. Just because we enjoy the work doesn’t mean it’s not work.

And as much as I love to write, it’s a time and energy consuming endeavor.

In order to be able to take some time off this week, I had to put in extra work ahead of time to make sure I had some blog posts ready to go. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to relax. I’d be focused on how I wasn’t writing, wasn’t posting, and, as a result, all the work I’ve put in all year would go to waste.

Oh, I’m not saying it’s healthy. I’m just saying that I’m wired that way.

While I’m grateful for the work ethic instilled in me by my parents, I tend to overdo it.

As much as I love the last week in December, historically, it’s a time I get sick.

Often, I go without enough downtime throughout the entire fall semester. Once the semester ends and I finally slow down, I usually drop with a cold. At the very least, I feel like shit because I’m finally unwinding, my body is finally letting go of all the tension it’s held onto for months on end.

I’m tired of using the time off I have to recover from being sick or exhausted. I know I’m not alone here, either.

So many people across so many professions experience burnout. It prevents them from enjoying this last week in December when the whole world seems to slow down and take a break.

It shouldn’t be this way.

I have a lot of goals for 2022.

One of them is to find a better work-life balance so that I don’t have to wait until the end of December to take a break.

Yes, I’m going to work my ass off in hopes of accomplishing everything I want to next year. I’m hoping I’ll find ways to enjoy doing so, the whole “love the process” philosophy I’ve heard over and over the last several years.

But I’m also hoping to take the time to rest so I can do my best work. To stop and appreciate the little things in life that I so often overlook. To stop and take a break to read something from my ever-growing pile of books.

Let’s all strive to do better with downtime. Let’s be sure to take the breaks we need in order to do our best work, to keep in mind that work, life, and the pursuit of happiness are all marathons, not sprints.

Let’s vow to have the time between Christmas and New Year’s as a time to enjoy life. Let’s play in the snow, binge our favorite shows, spend time with our families, and do all the things we love doing. Let’s stop and enjoy all the things we work so hard all year to get.

More importantly, let’s not let this be the only week during the year in which we do so.

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