Across the Fence: Winding Down

Submitted by Susanne Bacon.

Somehow, this year it has been harder for me to get into a holiday mood. I’m still working on it. Maybe, after yesterday, I’m achieving it better. Thanksgiving is usually the time of year when I’m pretty much on schedule with preparations for all of December. This year, not so much.

Maybe it is because of the general news of the world. Maybe it is because summer came so late and fall lasted so very long that the seasonal winter mode simply doesn’t switch on. Maybe it is because of particularly aggravating things in my own life that were put on my plate from outside without any of my fault. I know that quite a few of you have similar bundles to carry. It doesn’t make it easier to get into a holiday mood, right?

Therefore, I’m cutting myself slack these days. And maybe some of these ideas are equally useful to you. The holidays are made for us as something to enjoy, after all, not a competition. It’s not the number of cards or gifts you get (or give) that makes your holiday better – it’s the honesty and warmth with which they are given and received. It’s not the size of the feast you prepare but the love and flavor that you put into it. It is not about rushing to every social to which you are invited; it’s about coziness and relaxing and pondering the meaning of the holidays. And if you don’t have to work on some of these days, all the better.

My next novel is in the making. It ought to have been published a while ago. My mind was occupied with more serious decisions, and the book is still a draft only half-finished. It will get there; just way later than planned. Pressure about something that I expect from myself is the last thing in a time when holiday mood should prevail. I’m getting there, I’m sure. You might want to think it over, too, whether everything optional you expect of yourself is actually expected by anybody else. Most likely, it isn’t. Achieving is good; overachieving might become scary to others.

This weekend, the first Advent candle might be burning on your wreath or Advent arrangement. Or maybe you just light a candle – no decoration, at all. Maybe you made cookies, maybe you simply bought some. Maybe you don’t even like cookies that much – I, for one, can do without – and nobody expects you to perform. Maybe you play Christmas music. Maybe you are simply in the mood for something else. As long as we are happy and don’t hurt anybody else with our private preferences, why shouldn’t we simply enjoy? It takes the stress out of a lot of things.

The supermarket parking lots and the lines in-store last weekend were extremely long. My husband and I simply walked out again and chose a small grocery store off our beaten route. We found everything we had wanted to purchase in the other one and had not a single person ahead of us at the cash register. Sometimes, the path less taken makes all the difference. Taking it easier, cutting oneself slack is maybe also a path less taken during the holiday season. It might actually feel really good.