Holiday Time

I have no idea what day of the week it is. I know the number, 26, but I don’t know what day it is because my body has lost all feelings in this regard. You too? It’s sooo bizarre! I mean, if I feel any day in my body it’s Saturday. One loooong Saturday. I know the days are changing…ha! I see daylight, we do things, it gets dark, I sleep…but then I awake and I’m discombobulated because I can’t feel the day. It is odd not having a Monday. Mondays feel so different than any other day. Sundays too, for that matter. They prepare me for Mondays! Tuesdays are fine days, tucked nicely after the (sometimes) brutality of Monday. I always think about movies on Tuesdays. Cheap night. I get an urge to fold into a seat and stuff fistfuls of buttery popcorn in my mouth on Tuesdays. Wednesdays I feel the hump (also I giggle at the word, and see a camel…). Thursdays are often my most productive day. I’m excited about Friday, which is always a day with extra uumph. And Saturdays are like…a grand dining room table – awaiting things to fill it…or not.

I think Christmas was on a Wednesday. Was that yesterday?! Christmas always feels like at least two days – no matter what day it actually is. There’s the one day that consists of ‘Christmas morning’. It includes groggily waking up earlier than usual, followed by a fluttering of excitement in the belly upon remembering it’s Christmas. The prospect of opening gifts continues to be thrilling even at age 46. I hope it never goes away! There’s the handing out of gifts, the ripping of colourful wrapping, the shhshy rustles of tissue paper, the squeals of delight upon seeing new treasures…I also do a lot of gift-embracing, especially with books! I held home decor magazines, books of poetry, and Jim Carrey’s book Memoirs & Misinformation. We share our bounties among us then settle into the sofa to snuggle the dogs and dig into one of our gifts…putting the new hoodie on, say, or opening the new book and beginning to read it. We put a holiday movie or football on the telly…and this feels like an entire day.

Then I eat because as holiday time insists, I am constantly hungry! For what? Chocolate? Bread? Pasta? All. The. Delicious. Foods I try to manage on regular days. Then there’s the tidying up for the family visitors who will stay for a bit. Long enough to share their own Christmas joys, open gifts, then head home. Then we head out to another house – for a giant meal that we look forward to all year.

Going to another place constitutes day two. We eat, drink and are merry with family. We talk loudly, laugh like children, and rub our tummies, bursting with too much food. Coming home is a short ride, but it is a marker of the end of the coveted traditions that make our Christmas.

I can’t believe that this experience, this two-day-feeling extravaganza of giving-and-receiving, was yesterday! When we got home, I quickly put my pyjamas back on (it felt so weird putting on a bra and getting actually dressed in ‘outside the house’ clothes!), and I dug back into Carrey’s novel. I read until 11-something, so into it, that time itself disappeared. Yet another phenomenon of holidays…time can stop existing fully! That is some kind of miracle.

And here I am in this Now. Hunger pains piquing (of course). I am dressed in clothes that are not pyjamas. I did laundry and had coffee. The days feels almost like…a day! And I’ve been thinking of writing with ravenous need…yet this is the first time I’ve put my fingers to a keyboard in days. Holidays cause a riff in time and also a rip in my mind’s narrative about ‘work’. It just doesn’t want to do it. Or anything that resembles it or uses the same tools (ex. computers/keyboards/paper!).

I want to tell you what books I’ve read this year. I surprised myself with the amount! And, one of the things I want to do is update my Goodreads…this will take a while because I love to write little descriptions of my reading experiences (aka reviews, though I’m having an aversion to the word…!).

I also read Bad Cree by Jessica Johns…but I don’t know where the actual book is! And, I’ll be finished reading Carry’s book before January 1st, for sure. That’s a total of 29 books! That’s 2.41 books a month on average. I’m happy with this! I really should write out all the titles, authors and include links, but my back is starting to scream in pain, so I will refrain from putting that much more time into this post. My apologies. I’ll get to it soon!

And so…Happy Holidays to all. May you endure this wild, time-bending navigation of holidays with vigour, passion, joy and kindness – for yourself and those around you!

Happy snuggling too. Here’s Oscar and I after a long morning snuggle.

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!