Here’s something that probably isn’t groundbreaking: I don’t find the festive period relaxing. I have a lovely big family, with multiple slobbering dogs, so quiet space is hard to come by when we get together. I get tetchy and uncomfortable when I don’t feel in control of my own routine. All that wrapping paper and turkey in the fridge. The reds and the greens—garish! It’s a sensory horror show. Call me Scrooge, but I don’t consider the festive period a “vacation” as such. A celebration, yes, a joyous time, lots of laughs—but not a vacation.
In the past, my stress around Christmas (and my stress around that stress, which felt inappropriate) meant that I’d often enter the new year feeling confused and a little bedraggled. There’s much ado around fresh starts in January, but this can be difficult when you don’t feel as though you’ve fully recovered from the tail end of December. But I’m doing things differently this year because I’ve realized—not for the first time—that I’m actually an adult with free will. I’m taking a post-Christmas vacation. A break after the festive break. A recovery period to recover from the recovery period. And I’m starting to think it’s something of a life hack.
The phrase “post-Christmas vacation” sounds like I’m referring to extending your festive period into early January—downtime on top of downtime. But I think that would miss the point entirely. You don’t want to feel like a human slug on house arrest, which is what so much of “Twixmas” can feel like. No, I’m talking about a separate vacation to properly relax—in, say, late January or early February like myself. If you’ve spent the past few weeks with elevated cortisol levels—maybe you have complicated family dynamics, or maybe you just find the whole thing overwhelming—then the point of the holiday is to center yourself. If Christmas is for others, then the post-Christmas holiday can be a much more personal endeavor.
One of my new year’s resolutions this year is to do more of what makes me happy, and to create boundaries around that specific goal (dipping out of parties when I want to, for example, or not agreeing to plans just because I don’t know how to say no). This doesn’t mean being selfish, or turning into the type of person who sends “I’m actually at capacity” texts to my friends when they reach out (that’s not “having boundaries”; that’s just being weird). But it does mean listening to myself more closely and thinking about what it is I really want. This year, what I really want is to escape to a converted barn in the middle of nowhere with my phone turned off for an entire week, where no one can reach me. So that’s what I’m going to do.
