Holiday Time
Always welcome, always anticipated, always fleeting.
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These days, I don’t work 40-hour weeks — although I’m not retired! As I keep having to remind some people. But I am a consultant with sometimes unpredictable work hours, which have gone down since the passage of the Big Ugly Bill (right when my health insurance costs are going up — thanks, Republicans). So: not retired, but with a fair amount of flexibility and freedom in my days.
Yet the recent four-day Thanksgiving weekend was still such a welcome break.
I did work a couple of hours over that long weekend. But I had no meetings. No work emails, no messages coming in over Slack or Teams. No expectations of having to do any work, even though I did those two hours.
This year, due to circumstances, we didn’t even have a Thanksgiving gathering to attend. The four days off beckoned so invitingly, with their promise of rest, relaxation, and fun. At the beginning of Thanksgiving week I was already feeling the anticipation, and by Wednesday I had the full-on holiday feeling.
When I do finally retire, will I get to feel this way? Or will every day feel the same, whether it’s a weekday, weekend, or holiday?
Most of us have only a dim memory of how we felt as kids at the beginning of summer. I didn’t hate school or anything, but there’s nothing like the freedom of not having to go anywhere, of the whole summer stretching out ahead of you, full of unstructured time. The wonderful feeling of doing what you want when you want. Even when my sister and I went to day camp or I had a part-time job, this feeling persisted.
It vanished when summer vacations vanished, so abruptly, so harshly, as we left school and entered the full-time workforce. Maybe Europeans get to experience the feeling in August; I don’t know.
But all we Americans have, other than all-too-short weekends, are holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. As brief as they are, they bring a welcome if fleeting respite from the usual weekly grind and the stress of always being overscheduled.
And here in the Northern Hemisphere, those holidays come at a time when our bodies naturally want to slow down.
Holiday time is different from random time off because everyone else is off, too. Okay, I know some people are still working, but enough of us are off that we can more easily use the time to gather with friends and family. If I take off random weekdays during the year, only my retired friends will be free to get together. As great as it is to have flexibility and freedom, it’s even greater when you can share time off with others.
Holiday time is especially relaxing when there are no expectations. In my family we don’t make a big fuss over Christmas, and we stopped exchanging gifts long ago, which lowers the holiday stress considerably. I wouldn’t do that if kids were involved, but none of us adults really need more random stuff. I’d much rather spend time hanging out with friends and family than shopping for them.
But even if there were shopping involved, holiday time would still feel different from other times. Now that I’m getting older, I wonder if it will always be this way.
When I eventually do retire, I don’t plan to sit around eating bonbons. I hope to spend more time writing and taking classes, and of course, hiking and hanging out with friends. I expect weekdays and weekends will still feel different, if nothing else because of having to be aware of traffic patterns that will affect my outings. Plus, some of my friends will still be working.
But the days might blend together a bit more than they do now. Will life feel like one big holiday? I doubt it. As much as I hate scheduling my days, I’ll still have some scheduled activities. I’ll still have some constraints on my time, something that never seems to end. Time will still feel scarce — which those of us in the last third of life are keenly aware of.
So I hope I’ll still be able to enjoy the feeling of holiday time. I hope I’ll still take it as an opportunity to rest, relax, and recharge.
This particular Thanksgiving weekend, I ended up catching a cold. So I wasn’t able to go on the two hikes I’d planned with friends; instead, I lay on the couch reading David Copperfield. Not how I’d hoped to spend the extra time, but still, not bad. And as the long weekend came to an end, I had the feeling I always have — that it had been far too short and had gone by far too fast.
But that’s okay: Christmas is coming up soon, with even more down time. I’m sure I’ll spend it well and enjoy it to the fullest. As sure as I am about that every holiday.
Apparently, time is always on my mind, especially around the holidays. Here are some of my thoughts on time from past times.
Are you retired? If so, I’d love to hear how your relationship with time has changed — or hasn’t — since you stopped working. If you haven’t retired yet, how do you expect things to change when you do?
I still follow the rhythms of weekends and holidays with my husband, who works full-time. I left the workforce some time ago, but weekends still feel special and holidays even more so with my kids at home.
Time is different for me as a retired person and I’m freer to see people.. But I look forward to the holidays perhaps even more because there isn’t the time pressure of having to get all the visiting and cooking and cleaning and resting in before going back to work. It’s a different kind of holiday joy!