Festival Times

Lynn on Christmas:

Fillyjonk calls the week after Christmas “the quiet week at the bottom of the year.” I like that. It’s so much better than thinking of it as “the big letdown after Christmas” or the week of “thank goodness it’s over” which seem to be the two most common ways of thinking about it. I think a lot of people just don’t know how to handle quiet times when there’s not a lot to do so they start thinking too much about the wrong sort of things and get depressed.

I don't like thinking of Christmas as a let-down either, but it's hard not to get that feeling, when it's done: "So. Now what?" "I dunno, wanna get some coffee?" "Yeah, sure." I think it's because we have this giant build-up for one day, and I'm now thinking, hmmmmm. We could try to have less build-up, but I think the cat's well and truly out of the bag on that one, yes? So if we're going to have the build-up, the next best thing to do is to extend Christmas. Let's embrace the whole "Twelve Days" thing. Let's make it a real festival! A national, or even worldwide, festival of light and love and all that jazz. We have festivals all the time; why not one more?

(Yes, this idea isn't even half-baked. But that's the way I like my ideas, because then I can mold 'em so I like 'em.)