The week between Christmas and New Year’s is a little like the Bermuda Triangle. The days seem to vanish without a trace. We’re not even sure what the date is, or day of the week, for that matter. We’re in limbo with our calendar. We can’t toss aside 2011 because we just might miss that hair appointment on Friday, yet we need to peek ahead to next week. Next week being next year.
It’s easy to put off everything until “after the holidays.” It’s a satisfying feeling, giving ourselves permission to procrastinate. We get to postpone what at any other time of the year, we’d insist upon getting done.
Need to make that dentist appointment? Wait until after the first of the year. Want to start that diet? No sense doing it while we’re still going to holiday parties and finishing off the Christmas cookies.
This week between Christmas and New Year’s is actually a gift. There’s no guilt associated with delaying the inevitable. You’ll never reach that insurance guy anyway because EVERYBODY is on vacation this week. So don’t even bother.
For me, this is unstructured time. I submitted my final grades nearly two weeks ago, and I don’t resume school until the third week in January. I purposely stressed out myself between Thanksgiving and Christmas, finishing next semester’s syllabus and lesson plans so I could spend my month vacation doing what I love most: writing. But even that has a way of evaporating during the Bermuda Triangle week.
Is there really a need to write a new blog? After all, it’s the week between Christmas and New Year’s and my readers are too busy playing, celebrating, vacationing to sit at a computer and read. At least that’s what I tell myself.
While we enjoy this week which soars in and out with the seamless speed of Brigadoon (I’m a total sap for that movie), we know that as soon as New Year’s Day is over, all hell will break loose.
So, enjoy the remaining days of 2011 and even if you match me as an obsessive Type A, know that this is the one week of the year that you can put off today what you can do tomorrow.
