Wrapping up a very slow day at the office, here.
I hadn’t taken any time off, really, all last year, so I decided to take ALL of what I had saved up at once, and just go “off the hook”, as it were, for the entire Christmas Season.
So, I was away from my desk from December 12th through until last Wednesday. Then, because I’d ended up putting in almost a full day from home on the 12th, I traded for this past Friday off, as well. In all, about three whole weeks not having to commute, pick up the phone, wrestle with software, or anything work-related.
Man, I tell you THAT’S therapy!
Then, we went and celebrated all the Twelve Days of Christmas; spreading the gift-giving — and receiving — all the way out until Saturday. Yeah, the kids were still keeping pretty close score of who got what, and how many, but they took more time with each gift, and enjoyed them all a whole lot more than they have in the past when we did Christmas ALL on Christmas Day.
If you have enough power over your schedule to pull it off, I highly recommend both the consecutive days off, and the lengthened celebration, capped off with Epiphany, as a means to slow the harried 21st Century soul, and so allow for more contemplation, introspection, wonderment, and to suffuse the days, again, with the hallowed nature of the Season.
I had taken vacation time for various things throughout the year, so I was in the office through the 17th. And the next day or two worked on things from home -- including writing a magazine article, which I usually cannot do well in the office. But after that I was off for the rest of the year, a total of two weeks' worth.
Advent this year was a bit more penitential than before, in part due to poor health and in part to a more serious Advent study on the weekly themes of Death, Judgement, Hell and Heaven (paralleled by our rector's sermons on same -- very sobering). I don't think we were the poorer for it, for all it was in the midst of everyone else's "party hearty" time; our celebration was still to come.
We're kind of isolated from the rest of family (California -- roughly your neck of the woods, and East Coast), and I'm pretty burned out on travel, so the rest of the season was very low key for us.
It's tempting to extend the vacation to Epiphany, and this coming year it might be easier than usual. But I like what I read of your Christmas, and I wish more of us handled it that way -- as opposed to the big blowout 12/25 and the tree with the trash sitting out on the curb on 12/26.
Good for you! And the example you set.