My favorite holiday

Back in the spring, I posted something somewhere about "clothesline day" being my favorite "holiday". In fact, here's a picture of me on Easter a few years ago, celebrating clothesline day (yes, with a mimosa - it was Easter).

Basically, clothesline day is whatever day of the year happens to be the first day that the weather is warm, dry, and breezy enough to allow me to hang out my inaugural load of laundry. It makes me very happy, since, if you have read even a few posts on this blog you know that I am pretty well bonkers about line-dried laundry.

I do, very much, love clothesline day. But it's not exactly a REAL holiday. And if I'm honest, I can't really even say that it's my favorite day of the year. That is something totally different:

The Day After Thanksgiving.

Some would call this day "Black Friday". Not me. Black Friday implies that I like the day because I enjoy getting up at ungodly hours of the night to stand in long lines in the cold with a bunch of strangers to get into crowded stores and buy things on sale. 

That assumption would be completely untrue.

I have zero interest in doing any of those things. It doesn't appeal to me at all.

No, my reasons for loving The Day After Thanksgiving so much are many...

• pajamas all day
• eggnog in my coffee
• pie for breakfast
• day off of work
• the house is already clean from yesterday
• don't have to cook - leftovers for lunch AND dinner!
• getting out christmas decorations
• listening to christmas music
• spending the day doing christmas puzzles
• watching christmas movies
• hanging out with my family all day since nobody has any place to be
• even when the day is over, there are still 2 more days of weekend!

I'm sure there are more. Every year I think of new ways to appreciate this most wonderful day of the year. This year we will have the added bonus of being able to plug in our Christmas lights without the effort of having to spend the day on the roof hanging them up, since we got them out and Dave and Micah spent Halloween putting them on the house! 

So we're all pretty stoked about that.

Really, the simple truth of it all is that most holidays generally mean a lot of stress for me. There's usually an unusual amount of cooking and cleaning involved. Frequently decorating. It's not that any of that is bad, or that I don't like to do it. But when EXTRA time and energy is required, it can be hard to come by. Halloween is definitely not my favorite, since 1, I'm just not that into it; 2, it means walking around at night in bad weather and 3, spending weeks arguing with my children about how much candy they should be allowed to eat. (Although this year was a definite improvement as both L & M stayed local and went together, so I could trust them to not be stupid, so Dave and I stayed home and binge watched Downton Abbey. Parent win!) 4th of July is decent, except for the stress over someone setting fire to your house or themselves. Valentine's Day is ok and has improved vastly now that none of my kids have to make valentine boxes for school, but it still seems to mean arguing about candy. Thanksgiving is fun, but really, it's a lot of cleaning, cooking, and dishes (and I don't really even like turkey that much). Generally, I love Christmas. I do. But Christmas, in recent years has become almost unbearable with everything that seems to surround it. If it were just decorating, baking cookies, making dinner, opening presents, and going to church, that would be fabulous. But all the extra - the band concerts, the parties, the multiple gift exchanges, the secret santas, the this that and the other thing that seem to just pile, one on top of the other has gotten to the point that the joy, peace, and magic of Christmas is just buried under a load of calendar entries. I hate covid, but I am thankful that it means this December can be a bit more mellow and hopefully unaccompanied by a constant feeling of drowning.

I know this whole spiel has made me sound like a gigantic stick in the mud. 

But what I value most about special times like holidays is the ability to just BE with the people I love. To be at home. To focus on the ways that God has blessed us. To remember all of His good gifts - especially since holidays are days which generally bring one or more of those gifts to mind. The older I get the less tolerance I have for being busy. It's not that I want to be lazy - quite the opposite. I want to spend my time caring for my home and my people. I want to have energy to do my job well. I want to have time to enjoy the optional extras about holidays, especially Christmas - taking in the lights, hearing carolers, visiting favorite places, baking ALL the cookies... But when everyone is running in every direction every day, how does any of that not just seem like more busyness? More stuff you HAVE to do, places you HAVE to go. I'm not sure how to balance it. Most if it has to do with teams or organizations my kids are involved with, so short of making them quit everything, I'm not sure what to do. Maybe you're just supposed to try to keep your head above water until they graduate. That prospect kind of sucks. I'm already missing one kid, and don't want to spend the next 6 Christmases just surviving. Well, at least this year, I'm going to fully enjoy NOT being busy. Maybe that'll reenergize me for whenever "normal" comes back.

At any rate, we are currently in the month of my favorite day of the year, and I am most excited about it!