Christmastime is different when working from home. I find it ridiculous that it’s only a week away, Christmas, and a week after that, 2015. Usually this time of year is full of parties and well wishes at work, every gathering, meeting, or conference infused with the reds and greens of holiday cheer. Instead, my writing is nearly the same, though slower (due to the rewrite) and more interrupted (due to the holidays). I made sure to overdo the decorations here at home – no one can suggest I would feel more Christmasy if I put up some lights because I’ve put up no less than eighteen strands of them inside and out. And still, it feels strange, like a half-Christmas, a false end to the year with more 2014 just concealed behind it.
Time passes even though my days seem very much like each other, one after the next, pacing myself through my book project. This works fine in months like November and January, where a race through the calendar makes sense, but not at Christmas. No, I should be painfully feeling each and every minute, longing for the break at the end of the long work slog, relishing in each meeting’s opening by asking, “what are you doing for the holidays this year?” and dashing to the post office at the very last second because there are no seconds left even though I didn’t procrastinate at all. Instead, my Christmas shopping is done early, my gifts to other states are in the mail, I even shared some food with a homeless man down the street, but it doesn’t feel like Christmas, not even with carols blasting from the stereo by my kitchen.
And so it is that my new life is a bit like Christmas every single day, for what would I want to do with a week off work for the holidays if not read novel after novel and write stories on the side? In that case, I would take this little bit of Christmas everyday and sacrifice the blood-pumping rush of the season over feeling plenty of Christmas spirit during the holidays but a hollow desperation afterward.
My writing days can’t last forever but I am still managing to love each and every one of them.
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