The Holiday Intermission

So it's the day after Christmas and maybe it's some kind of self-torture but I always stay up till midnight on Christmas day to hear the last Christmas song played on the Radio.  This year it was Josh Groban's O Holy Night.

Not my favorite version but it closed out the Christmas part of the Holiday Season.  It was followed up with the usual parade of commercials and a station identification that drove the point home that as far as that radio station was concerned the Holidays were OVER!

It starts on Christmas Eve with me.  I feel like there's a huge hourglass somewhere with the last few grains of sand flowing through that tiny choke point and taking the joy of the season with it.

I'm aware that perception is everything and my analogy is my own.  Perhaps it's just that I love the Christmas season but there's something comforting in knowing that at this time of year the feeling is always present. It may get shuffled to the background but it colors my mood regardless.  It brings a hope and an optimism that may be difficult to conjure up at any other time.

So the Christmas music is over and we sit in that intermission between Christmas and New Years.  It's a fairly useless week.  Good luck getting anyone to do anything if they're even around.  It's dead time to fill.  For some a reprieve from the pressures of family responsibilities around the holiday.  For others a time of reflection especially as the old year closes.

It's a time that forces you to deal with yourself.  Maybe you've got a busy social calendar, maybe you have to work, maybe you're on your own.  It doesn't matter.  There are always those down times where you're forced to look around you and see what is and more importantly what isn't there.

The holiday decorations that a week earlier brought joy to your heart now look a bit tacky and faded.  The pressures of the ordinary reassert themselves without hindrance from that Christmas carol ringing in your head.

Christmastime is a powerful force and its passing can make us forget that we somehow managed to survive the other 11 months of the year without the encouragement of Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men.

If Christmas is that important, the feeling, the meaning of it so dear then we should recover from the "Christmas High" fairly quickly.  Reason being because Christmas is really just a magnification of our own better selves.  That heart is always present.  It's just easier to show when the trees go up and the reindeer antlers go on the dog.

At least that's how I look at it.  I don't claim to know your mind or your motivations.  I only offer up the possibility that if the holiday season means that much to you that you carry that spirit with you no matter what time of year.

Connect with that and don't be surprised if your perception is altered.

Happy New Year!