Time Management Tuesday: Looking Forward to the End of the Holidays Doesn't Mean You Hate Them. It Means You Love Temporal Landmarks.

Last week I got an email from the Thurber House in Columbus, Ohio with a link to its spring Zoom writers' workshops. I went through that thing like a gardener sucking up a seed catalog in January. I am excited about putting the holidays behind me so I can take workshops, get back to a more regular writing schedule, take on a new reading project to replace this year's Heritage Project, increase my market research, start new submissions, and....everything! I am psyched for everything! 

My sister, a serious rubber stamper and card maker, looks forward to Christmas being over so she can deal with a "to be answered" box filled with letters, a craft room that is a wreck, and a table that is piled high. I do not know what table she is talking about or what it could possibly be piled high with.

I don't believe that what we're feeling is any kind of intense dislike for Christmas and the labor and distraction leading up to it. Instead, I think we are feeling the impact of the temporal landmarks, calendar events that provide opportunities for fresh starts, that surround us right now.

A number of cultures celebrate holidays at the end of the year, each with a lead-in season beforehand involving ritual, food, and, well, shopping. The beginning of all those holiday seasons is a temporal landmark, marking the start of something. The holiday comes, and now you've got another temporal landmark, the beginning of "after the holidays." 

Then, of course, it being December we have the end of one year and the beginning of the new one, a very big temporal landmark that has a big impact psychologically.

All those temporal landmarks coming together provide some significant power, drawing us, at least my sister and me, into the excitement of what's coming up. 

Being excited for what's coming up in life doesn't mean you can't enjoy what's happening now, your holiday. And enjoying your holiday doesn't mean you can't look forward to what you're going to be doing in the coming new period. We're not talking a binary, either/or situation. Instead, this is a classic example of being able to hold two thoughts in your head at the same time.

Enjoy whatever holiday you observe and best wishes for whatever you're excited about doing in the next few months.