For starters, let me introduce myself. I’m Ms. Crankypants, guest contributor for the month. Carolyn is busy with other things – well, to be honest, I sent her what looked like an official email that the blog was taking the month off so she didn’t have to write anything. I don’t even feel that bad about it. A girl has to make her own opportunities after all. So this is my chance to tell you what I think for once.About the holidays for instance. I’ve had it – year after year with the shopping, the decorating, the wrapping, the baking. Well, I don’t personally actually bake, but searching the stores for the special cookies that come in the cellophane covered boxes that are like the ones my grandmother used to make takes a lot of my time.
I’m not the only one who needs a rest. Look into the eyes of your neighbor, your relatives, the shopper who just cut in line in front of you at TJ Maxx, and you’ll see not peace and good will but panic. How will she – or you- get everything done in time?
So, I’ve decided to start a movement – The Christmas Sabbatical. Here’s the concept: Every few years you get to take a pass on all the holiday preparations and simply float on top of the season without unwanted fuss and no stress. You become exempt from any expectations. You need to do nothing. Don’t tell me you’ve never thought of it yourself. You have, you just haven’t had the, let us say, ova, to carry it out. Or if you have, you’ve kept it awfully quiet. But don’t worry. I’ll be happy to take the credit.
I’m starting small this year, just telling a few people like you, my target group – bright, engaged, creative people who have better things to do than fritter away their time on culturally-mandated busywork. I once saw a Martha Stewart magazine where she expected perfectly functional females to waste a day or two of their lives glue-gunning cranberries to a Styrofoam wreath. I know I’m a little bit excitable, but that one sent me around the bend. How will we ever achieve world peace – and it does look like it’s going to be up to us girls since the men have been making such a hash of it for centuries – wasting our time like that?
Next year will be the big rollout – a New York Times OpEd piece, an interview on The View (Elizabeth the conservative one will sputter in indignation), a book deal – but I get ahead of myself. Just to head off Elizabeth and my other critics, I am not suggesting giving up Christmas and what it stands for (which was what? I’ve forgotten). I just advocate the chance to take a year off from the bustle periodically and see what else shows up to fill the space.
A moment about tone. You want this to be a joyful experience that allows you unprecedented freedom and ease, not a way to bitterly weasel out of your responsibilities. I know to mention this because a certain significant other, call him Mr. Grumpy, I mentioned it to shot back, “Well, don’t do it anymore if you don’t like it.” Which completely misses the point, as usual. Just to be clear: the point is that you may usually love to do all the preparing, gifting, polishing, etc. but after a marathon lifetime of the same, deserve a break once in a while.
And here’s the beauty of it - The Sabbatical is not an all or nothing proposition. Given your personality, your budget and your other circumstances, you design it to fit your particular needs.
I have constructed a matrix, elegant in its simplicity, to lay out your options. It is based on first, whether you want your sabbatical to be complete (for those you who have been overfunctioning for years) or partial (if you just want to dial things back to an achievable level). Second, do you want it to be visible (so you can champion the idea) or invisible (so you can use it as an internal guideline to keep your own expectations in check)? Allow me to explain.
Option 1: Complete and Visible. You just resign from everything you usually do. Boldly declare that you are not participating this year and then duck because there will be a backlash. You will be called an atheist Christmas-denier. Not recommended if you have children in the house. They take everything so personally, and you may scar them for life and I don’t want to be implicated for that. I may be cranky, but I’m not a monster.Option 2: Complete and Invisible. This requires more finesse. You totally take the year off, but don’t admit it. Always answer a question with a question, like “So where is the Christmas tree?” with “Have you seen the axe?” You might want to come down with the fake flu on Christmas Eve and get over it on the 26th and watch old movies in between.
Option 3: Partial and Visible. Admit what you are doing with pride. Choose your five favorite holiday activities and do them with gusto, then wrap yourself in the flag of nonmaterialistic values if anything else rears its head demanding to be done. Set an example for your family and friends and recruit them to participate in the big rollout next year.
Option 4: Partial and Invisible. Cut back but keep it to yourself. It will be entertaining to see if anyone even notices what you’ve dropped, and if they do, if they have the nerve to mention it. Remember to wear your new relaxation on your sleeve, so as to attract positive energy that helps everyone you come in contact with feel like they can settle down too.
Before I let you go to put this into practice, here’s a consideration of how the sabbatical concept impacts the prevailing notions about what Christmas must be:
There is the annual scolding that we must “put the Christ back in Christmas,” as if it is some sort of religious holiday. This is accompanied by he increasingly confusing squabbles over where people can put menorahs, crèches, Christmas trees, or not. My response: I’ll decide exactly what needs to be put in my own holiday, thanks, and you do the same.
And the language thing – can you say “Merry Christmas” to your atheist friends (you do have atheist friends, you know), or your Jewish neighbor or Muslim co-worker, without being an insensitive jerk? This however, requires that you prescreen any possible greetees for their religious identity so you can place them in the proper category which is potentially rude and unwelcome. My outlook: Let’s just all get over ourselves and just be glad that someone wants to greet someone else rather than blow their head off. Jeez.
Every year the Christmas card list forces you to make an accounting of your friends and associates, sadly removing the ones who are gone and scouring your year to see if you’ve made any new friends at all to add, which is a good thing if you ask me. But the Christmas letter thing, oh brother. Talk about making work for yourself. Now Ms. Crankypants likes a good story as well as the next person, but shouldn’t have to sit through a recitation of each mole that everyone in the family had removed this year. Limit it to one page and you won’t try your patience or anyone else’s. Besides, by next year, we’ll probably all be down to just a Tweet and think of all the time that’ll save.
Finally there is the problem of the proliferation of traditions that demand to be repeated year after year. Just because you flew to Trenton the last ten years on Christmas Eve doesn’t mean you have to repeat that this year. Too much accumulation of have-to’s leads to the very problem we are trying to solve – drowning in unnecessary commitments. It would be like never getting rid of your gramophone when you went to stereo, and keeping your Beta video tapes once VHS came in. Or listening to your Walkman in one ear and your iPod in the other. We’ve got to let the past go to create a manageable present. Mindfulness now, that’s what I say.
Okay, I think that’s it. Don’t tell Carolyn I was here. She tries to keep me under wraps, but she’s pretty easy to outwit. I’ll be back.
Oh yeah, happy holidays.
MCP aka CBH 12/09
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