Slowly Grinding Down

Last year was a big holiday year for my family. Because she simply will not fly, travel for my mother is difficult and dramatic. Last year she spent nearly five days traversing the country by Amtrak to get from northwest Iowa to Arizona for Christmas. Since she refused to get a hotel room for a stopover in Omaha, on both legs of the trip she spent an entire night alone in the Omaha bus terminal, and an entire day wandering the streets of Sioux City waiting for connecting trains and buses. Fortunately, she also had a stopover in Chicago and allowed me to take her in for that time, but the poor woman was nearly dead by the time she returned home.

So, it stands to reason that this holiday season would be low key. Add now to the mix the fact that both my mother and I are one very strict budgets and a big holiday blow-out for 2007 doesn't make sense.

And since I'm effectively unemployed, the holiday spirit has not seized me. I'm not a Scrooge, nor a Debbie Downer. This year I'm open to the concept of Christmas, it's just that the physicality of my world has shrunk to a few square blocks, and because one day seems pretty much like the last my sense of time is screwy. I'm repeatedly amazed that it's not still July.

But still, I can feel the world slowly grinding to a holiday halt. There are fewer jobs advertised. People are taking longer to respond to messages. Meetings and interviews aren't being scheduled for next week, but rather after the first of the year. At my old company I had arranged it so that the office would be closed all of next week.

There is a strong sense that every American will participate in the Christmas holidays, if for no other reason than there is simply no way to avoid it. I've had Jewish friends who went on vacation over Christmas and I always thought it odd that they would celebrate the holiday by going away. In point of fact, I now realize, they went away because there was nothing else to do.

Don't get me wrong: Christmas, both the religious and secular/commercial versions, are good things. A religious Christmas -- the concept of peace and love, contemplation of the Eternal -- I view as essential. A chimerical Christmas -- gifts, parties, social connecting and networking -- all play a function in people's lives. But it seems virtually impossible to opt out of the holidays. Even if you simply keep your head down, there are still cards in the mail. There are still Christmas commercials on television. There are those damn year-end-in-review articles everywhere you turn.

And there's a sense of renewal. It's almost like the planet does a little mini revolution within it's normal cycle and New Year's Day is also the first day of spring. Resolutions are made, calendars are started and everything seems fresh and new. Does anything feel more tired and out of date than a lit Christmas tree on January 2?

So, to those who are celebrating, have a happy holiday season. To those who are not, either lighten up or stop and smell the pine needles. The world will revolve more quickly again on January 2.