I woke up this morning and it was December 27th.
December 27th still works for me. It's like a Sunday, even though I have to go to work. But it doesn't feel like work, because everyone's still in their 'sweatpants mode' and the office is either empty or it may as well be. It's a half-day, and half-days are better than no days. You remember those half-days you had in elementary and high school, right? You'd get out at noon and you wouldn't be forced to learn a thing in class that morning anyway. It almost felt like you were getting away with something, like all of a sudden your teachers just put down their swords and were your friends. Christmas or summer break were fine and all, but they weren't exciting or fulfilling the way that one half-day (really, half-morning) was.
And that's what the 27th is for me. Christmas Eve, too, because I have to work on Christmas Eve. But I don't really work... I just kind of have to go into the office. I do work and I enjoy it, though. This year – on Tuesday – I was at home, working until 2 a.m. the next morning, writing and editing and moving pieces around, making sure our sites were current or at worst a little fresh and flush with some fun and Santa-y.
I enjoyed it because I was enjoying work. Anyone can enjoy sleep or beer or sleep. Not many can enjoy work, and hardly any rarely do.
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are basically one. Boxing Day is a crater. And the 27th... that's the last gasp before the world is normal again. It's the Sunday of December. It's the Sunday of the entire year.
Sure, people will be in that holiday lull between the 25th and the 1st of January, but New Year's Eve isn't that same sort of break that Christmas is. It's not relaxing, really. It's not full of family. Your Christmas lights may even be down already. Your tree could be tucked in your closet already, and maybe it's mulch.
I'll take the 27th every year. I'll take it while I can. The last day I can breathe before that boring, monotonous life we've made ourselves fit into comes back to suck the life out of you with traffic, taxes, black shoes, and bagged lunches. It's like that, really, no matter sort of work you're in and no matter how much money you make or what your position is. I've never had to fight for or sacrifice a lot, but I've worked a range of road construction, journalism, advertising, and just general business, and I've been a student – kindergarten to elementary to high school to university and then to university again. It's always the same. Christmas and the 27th are always the same.
And I hate the 28th.