Holiday Interlude

... grateful for the pause

The days between Christmas and New Year’s have become my favorite part of December. They come after the frantic holiday celebrations have passed and before future events demand my immediate attention. Time seems to slow down. I don’t feel behind or ahead. I sleep later, eat leftovers, and let the year settle. It’s a week with fewer plans and lower expectations—and that’s the point. It’s a change in pace, an interlude.

It wasn’t always like that for me. In the past, these holiday interludes were sometimes filled with frustration, grief, chaos, and anxiety. As a college student decades ago, I remember the December I spent that “in-between” week agonizing over an overdue research paper on T. S. Eliot for the previous semester’s English literature class. When I was pregnant with my first child, I spent those days struggling to finish sewing a corduroy maternity jumper before I had to go back to work on January 2nd. As a librarian, I recall another December when I was tasked with writing the narrative for a library grant that was due the first week of January. Each one taught me the importance of planning. Some events, however, cannot be planned, such as the death of my father on Christmas Day, when my family and I spent the following week planning his memorial service.

And for as long as I can remember, I have also used these interlude days to plan the “perfect” diet and exercise program—another New Year’s resolution that was certain to change my life. I have never reached that goal. So I no longer make resolutions. I’ve learned my lesson about promises I can’t keep, especially to myself.

And so, this year, the tree comes down as soon as I can manage it; decorations, cookie tins, and wrapping paper are stored away once more. My most pressing task now is to find a new calendar—not to plan or to commit, but simply to replace the one that’s finished. I like the clean white squares of each day, waiting to be filled with appointments, birthdays, and reminders.

Now that I’m retired, I don’t feel the pressure to prove I’m prepared, productive, or ahead of the curve. I no longer have to shape this week around someone else’s deadlines. Instead, I let time slow again, just as it does in these quiet days between holidays—grateful for this small interlude where life asks nothing more of me than to pay attention and get a bit more sleep. And as the old year slips into the new, I feel a grateful sense of contentment and renewed focus.