11.30.23 - The Holidays: the sweet, lethargic dissolve into gluttony and nothingness
A slice of apple pie or a piece of lasagna? That is the question.
Thanksgiving…the dawn of the holiday season. And so begins the slow crawl to No Motivation Station: Christmas, and it’s surrounding brethrens — roughly December 23rd to January 1st, where if you’re lucky, you get to enjoy a deep, lethargic dissolve into gluttony and nothingness. Full permission to eat without reproach and lay around all day doing absolutely nothing, for days on end? Sign me up! I can do nothing like it’s my job. There’s endless television and movies for me to watch and infinite slices of Uncle Charles’ sweet potato pie for me to devour. The couch and I become one, all standards of health are suspended until the new year.
The sweet, sweet descent into lethargy and gluttony is rapid. Leftovers transcend meal genres. What was definitely Thanksgiving dinner soon becomes Friday’s brunch and Saturday’s late night snack. Someone plops on the couch next to you with a slice of apple pie and you wonder:
How much is left? Did they finish the last of the ice cream? Am I actually craving apple pie, or is it a slice of lasagna that I want?
We even support each other in our gluttony — cutting slices, pouring drinks, and microwaving plates for our loved ones. We’re all complicit in sin, eating because it’s something to do, drinking to celebrate the time off, injecting sugar into our veins because we’re enslaved to the glucose and it tastes fucking delicious.
The lethargy these days is all Netflix’s fault. They drop bangers every holiday season that you have to watch just to be a functioning member of the culture; bangers (see: Squid Game: The Challenge) you can’t take your eyes off of but can also somehow keep idly in the background as you knock out some Black Friday online shopping on your phone. It’s genius. You began the holiday with ambitious plans to do this and that and what had happened was, you kicked your feet up on the couch and never moved.
This year, the adult kids and I played house after Thanksgiving while my parents were away being socialites in Florida. We played Catan, we played dominos, we ate apple pie for breakfast and made breakfast for dinner, we smoked, we drank rum punch, we hung out and talked shit, we played musical chairs in the couches, we watched Christmas movies and thrillers, and I hope think someone walked the dog. We lived our best November 24th lives and yet, there was a slight gloominess in the air — at least for me. I was haunted by the reminder that these are some of our last moments as main characters, before tiny humans come along to steal our thunder. Before laying in the couch and scratching my ass is replaced with tummy time and storytime. Where shit-talking and smoking morphs into talking about my breasts and pumping. Where my selfishness ultimately comes to an end. Adorable detonators. I’m in mourning.
Anyway!
It is bliss to rest our minds and bodies and do absolutely nothing. And to do this for free at home and not on a paid-for vacation, feels all the more pure. To wake up without an alarm and ask myself “what do I feel called to do?” and for my response day after day to be ‘sitting on the couch doing fuck all’? I am blessed and highly favored!
Now, I say I can do nothing like it’s my job, but in actuality, it’s a lot harder than I’m making it sound. While my feet are kicked up watching my fifth episode in a row, my mind is periodically glossing over my to do list, wondering what could be getting done while I watch this show. Lest we forget I am a master multitasker breaking free from my addiction to hyper-productivity. My body could be at rest but my mind doesn’t easily let up on the race. My anxiety is both exhausting and (now through a therapized lens) hilarious. Knee deep in The Killer, bitch what is so important in your email?
“Rest disrupts the lie that we are not doing enough. Rest rejects urgency. Rest is a meticulous love practice.” - Tricia Hersey echoes in my head.
We’ve become cogs in the machine called capitalism, where “freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor. It must be demanded by the oppressed.” To sink into the couch with a good book is an act of resistance — a reminder to the white man that I own my time and my body. I live for a rebellion. At my last job in 2019, we had unlimited sick days. I would shamelessly take at least one a month for “chronic cramps” and never understood those who had excess vacation days to rollover. Today, working for myself, my dad’s mantra “No work, no pay” reverberates in my brain. I have to work overtime to control my anxious mind into submission for the holiday season, but I hear you Tricia and I’m with you.
Thankfully for me, the holidays has always been a joyous time. I come from one of those boring, no-drama families. Beneath the surface, we’re all dealing with our own mess but as a unit, it’s primarily rainbows and sunshine. Wedged between Thanksgiving and Christmas is also my birthday, so the end of year is just a good ol’ time.
For some, the holidays is not so rosy. For some, it’s defined by loss. A reminder of who’s missing. A sadness, a void, a numbness. There’s no better time to put a spotlight on what’s lacking than the holidays where the underlining activity is time spent with loved ones. When you don’t have loved ones or yours kinda suck, I imagine the holidays can feel oppressive. To be home and to be counting down the days to leave, to be surrounded by friends on Thanksgiving — your chosen family but not your actual family. A festive, warm and fuzzy time marked by a little emptiness and a tinge of sadness. For some, the renewal and hope of January 1st couldn’t come any sooner…
I do agree — January 1st couldn’t come any sooner. Returning to work after Thanksgiving is just cruel. It’s like the last week of school before summer vacation; everyone is present, but no one is there. For the next four weeks, we schlep — out of bed every morning into the cold dark misery outside and off to type some things, send some emails, and (for most of us) not save the planet. This Thanksgiving, we went around the table and all said a goal for the new year. A bit premature yes, but as we sat across from loved ones, eating good food and laughing, it was obvious what we were thankful for. My goal for 2024: a house. My slice of the American nightmare dream; to invest all of our savings in this here Ponzi scheme housing market and ultimately store Nate’s bike in a garage and not on our bedroom wall.
Today this November 30, Nate types vigorously beside me searching for a new job, haunted by the mortgage payments arriving on the midnight train. I lay daydreaming about the lethargy of Thanksgiving past and Christmas coming, toggling between my urge to get this shmoney and lay in rest as Tricia instructed. I trust, January 1st Natasha will know what to do…
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