The In-Between

The week between Christmas and New Years is such a weird place to be.  

On one hand it's meant to be a low-key, relaxing time to recover from the holiday.  The kids are out of school, hopefully the adults can snag some time off, and activities are mostly at a minimum, as long as you got your celebrations out of the way around the actual holiday.  It is a prime time to relax as much as possible with Christmas cookies at the ready and the TV on your streaming service of choice.  I appreciate the abundance of time because it makes it easier to choose to do things I normally feel I don't have time for or usually need to rush through, like working out, or doing that extra bit of cleaning I typically ignore, or finally fixing that thing I keep neglecting.  

On the other hand, it can also feel like a mad scramble to do all the things.  For us it starts with unpacking and cleaning up the Christmas mess--whatever we left behind of our gift opening and breakfast in our rush to travel, unloading whatever we brought home with us, and finally packing away the leftover gift bags, boxes, and tissue.  I typically feel much better once that's done.  But having this amount of time away from work is rare, so inevitably there are at least half a dozen projects that I'm eyeing up--everything from typical household stuff to leisure activities I never have time for, like gratuitous TV watching or something crafty.  There's always bill paying and calendar refreshing and house cleaning.  There's usually some sort of gift follow-up to do, like getting Carter's phone set up or assembling the Legos or doing all the new laundry. I have a bunch of stuff in my basement to give away on Facebook and this should be the time I do it, but I doubt it will happen.  The other night I finally seasoned a lightweight cast iron pan I bought more than a year ago and then panicked about using.  I was hoping Carter and I would start making the crystals I mentioned in my last post, and I've also been meaning to make churros the kids have been asking for for weeks, but suddenly time has filled up and now I'm not so sure.  This always happens--I am really productive in a lot of ways (even if one of them is actively making time to relax), but between the holiday days and any work days I plug in there, I always seem to run out of time before I run out of to-dos.

Even still, this time is so helpful for feeling capable of doing things and not ending up with complete paralysis trying to decide what's most important (at least until the last couple days).  But I also know if I don't do something now, I will struggle to find time to do it later.  That is equally motivating and terrifying.  Ultimately I just try to do what I can while also prioritizing relaxation and not pushing myself like crazy.  There's never really enough time, but it is a really helpful break regardless.

I know for some people this time looks like the perfect time to put away all the Christmas stuff.  Social media is full of people taking down Christmas as early as Christmas night (what?!) or on the 26th.  To some degree I do understand the urge to clean up and minimize and get a fresh start, but that is just not something I can get on board with.  I work too hard during all of Christmas season to give up this prime time to just sit and enjoy it.  The rest of Christmas is full of to-do lists and stress, so this is my opportunity to sit back and appreciate it without all of that getting in the way.  Ever since I was a kid, this week has been about chilling out in the shadow of the tree, grabbing a gift from beneath it to play with, and basking in the afterglow.  It would feel so sudden and empty to just be thrust back into a non-Christmas house.  I still listen to Christmas music in my car this week, too, just because I always feel like I need to ease back out of the season a little more slowly.  I have a great transitional album that has a couple songs that are perfect for this time of year, including Auld Lang Syne, Boxing Day, and one that has a lyric that says, "It's always winter, but never Christmas," which likens the cold to feeling apart from God, but ends with a reminder that He is with us and we should not lose hope.  It just feels like the perfect wind-down.

Like I said, I understand the mental need to put away all the things and I try not to judge, but at the same time, it always feels to me like for those people, Christmas was just a thing they tolerated and are rushing out the door the moment it's socially acceptable.  It's like the clock hit midnight and Cinderella's coach turns back into a pumpkin.  The magic is over and we're just left with our gifts and memories and an empty spot in the corner of the living room.  As a Christian I have an even harder time getting on board with that.  Christmas isn't just about the decor and gifts, it's about celebrating the birth of our savior.  And I don't just want to rush past that, especially now that I have some downtime to appreciate it.  I want to reflect upon it while still looking at my nativities and tree.  I love the glow of the lights and all the memories my decor evokes.  Why would I want to cut that all short?  Sure, I have moments where I think it would be nice to get it done or put certain things away, but I suspect I'd miss it too much.  Personally, I like the concept of the Epiphany.  To me that's a nice spot to shoot for--enjoy the decor until then, and then decide beyond that when I'm ready to move on to our next stage (and have the time and energy to tackle the massive putting away).  To be fair, I don't mind our winter decor--it's like Christmas lite, with some of my white glass trees, some silver and pine garland, lots of sliver and clear glass, and some tasteful blues.  By the time I do it, it does feel fresher and lighter and cleaner.  But usually it only sticks around for about three weeks before it gives way to Valentine's Day.  And I have to say, having Carter's birthday in that time does make that challenging phase of winter a bit easier, both as a milestone/deadline and a highlight.  By the time we get there we're more than halfway to spring.  But at this point in the year, I'm usually pretty content to just sit in this dark time of year for a bit, with the glow of the lights and a little mental break before we get back to real life.

This past week we had a couple days of 50-60 degree weather, which was even more notable because it made all the White Christmas snow melt almost instantly, further pulling us away from the holiday.  I took a walk and it felt like a bit of a fresh renewal, though it probably would have felt more appropriate in January.  The downside, of course, was that a lot of people used the weather to take down their lights, probably a bit earlier than they would have normally.  Mine are easy enough to leave up because they only take five minutes to take down, but with people with tons of lights and inflatables, I guess I can't blame them.  It's a little bit of a bummer, though.  I did use the nice weather to catch up on a few things I never got to do before the weather turned--like cutting down my dead coneflowers and autumn joy sedums and dealing with our fall pumpkins.  I noticed some wetness on the porch when I got home from work on Friday.  I figured maybe something melted funny and drained onto the porch, but on Saturday I realized that our giant pumpkin unfroze, turned to mush, and oozed all over the porch.  So I hauled that back to the woods and then cracked open our little pumpkins and gourds to steal their seeds before sending them back there too.  It felt good to get that done.

I guess I didn't do too bad with the activities I wanted to cram in--I finished watching some Christmas movies I missed, did an old favorite puzzle by myself in three days, built my little Lego-ish gift, got an Amazon order placed for a few things, and did quite a bit of laundry.  We also had an activity for New Year's Eve day, which I'll get into in another post.

I'm planning to work from home tomorrow, but I might just take Friday off again because the kids are home and nothing is pressing.  It's super hard to focus when things aren't urgent and I'm constantly interrupted.  I can dig myself out tomorrow and start fresh on Monday with three days to think through projects I can work on before our books close and I spend a couple weeks straight doing reports.  I think that's a fair compromise.  But that means today is my last day of the streak before my time off turns into a simple long weekend.  And then it's back to the full school and work grind on Monday.  Sigh.

But I'm grateful for this in-between time to relax and recover.  It's been much needed and much appreciated, especially with all we went through with Jacob's surgery and recovery.  I'm sad to see this break end but I know it's time.  And now it's officially the new year.  I have absolutely zero expectations because anxiety is rough like that, and I'm having trouble processing that the pandemic was a full five years ago, but here we are.  Time for a few deep breaths and giving it a go...