What I think about when I think about happy holidays

I was speaking to a mate a while back about Murakami’s What I talk about when I talk about running and how it had a big impact on him when he first read it. And when he revisited it more recently, it fell a bit flat and didn’t spark the same flames as last time. But it got me thinking and so a new series is born. Read the first story in the series here.

We’re all just a bit tired by year’s end, aren’t we? A deep, subtle fatigue builds throughout the year – the shadow of time passing against our will. But we’re too busy to recognise it. And we’re comparatively lucky in Australia because although we cram in three football grand finals and “the race that stops the nation although only Victoria gets a public holiday for it” before the start of Summer (and Christmas), the only other public-holiday-enforced (read: Christian) family get together is Easter. Imagine having to squeeze in Thanksgiving around the time companies deploy their Christmas parties and the emotional pressure-cooker of Christmas starts to boil? No thanks(giving).

Summer should, in theory, take the edge off end of year fatigue, if not erase it altogether. But it doesn’t. It does makes the wind down easier though, faster too. What better way to slow down than sweating in sweltering heat as the world is force-fed Christmas cheer, which we eagerly lap up as another temporary distraction from the grim reality generations of capitalism has led us to an urgent ultimatum to save the planet from broiling us all. And while the UK jousts with a cost of living (and a familiar prime minister) crisis, America pretends it still has a firm grip on democracy, which is really just a geriatric oligarchical plutocracy, Australians face decade-high interest rates, which forces a cascade of uncomfortable questions. Will our intergenerational mortgages last longer than the planet? What’ll go higher, sea levels or interest rates? And lastly, why doesn’t the government care? But isn’t Summer lovely? Long, hot days away from the desk, off the tools, and at leisure melt into slow afternoons, and soft daylight-savings nights. Truly a delightful way to forget for a while.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could quickly and easily shake off a year of built-up fatigue like a wet dog so we could fully enjoy Summer while it lasts. But the dreamy weather doesn’t make it easier. If anything it makes it harder to return to work after the whirlwind Christmas get together stumbles into another disappointing New Year celebration and the harshly sobering realisation that another year has passed and soon, we’ll be back at work, staring out the window as the last weeks of hot summer days pass us by. And sure, we’re more energised and have somehow metabolised the end-of-year fatigue just in time for back-to-work sales at Officeworks, but what’s the point of that? That’s some grim Romeo and Juliet timing. Think I’d rather drink the poison.

Maybe the end of year fatigue is a tax we pay for an unbalanced, or at least a work-heavy, life. Five days on, two days off – what a way to live. Only someone interested in profits at the expense of human well being would create such a diabolical roster. We can ignore the fatigue for the rest of the year because of small respites – time off, public holidays, a birthday somewhere in there surely – and because it slowly builds like a frog dropped in a pot of cold water slowly brought to a boil who doesn’t realise how long ago the start of the year feels until bubbles are everywhere and the sound of  screaming (or is it Mariah Carey?) signal the end is nigh. Cheers!

Spring offers an aperitif for the delicious Summer days ahead and reminds us that soon enough – after Cricket usurps footy, another ‘lets catch up before Crissy’ and the work party – we can switch off, and get busy unwinding and forgetting the manic reality of our weekly routine. Spring might be better than summer – all the promise with none of the pressure. You know how sometimes you don’t realise how thirsty you are until you see an icy glass of water and the cold beer behind it? The promise of hot weather (not you, Northern hemisphere), time in nature, public-holiday-sanctioned gorging on food, auto-pickling in the range that any other time of year your GP would tell you is problematic and work-free days to absorb the hangover awakens the disorienting end-of-year fatigue in the same way. And it begs to be quenched by summer but will there be enough time to drink it all in before it’s time to go back to work? And will Christmas make it better or worse?

Christmas would be significantly less stressful and more enjoyable, if Home Alone and Die Hard were used as references instead of some seven-course tinsel-wrapped, yuletide-stuffed Martha Stewart Crocembouche covered in a reflective mirror glaze that shows a fleeting glimpse of that childhood Christmas perfection you’ll never experience again. The perfect Christmas doesn’t exist and the stress of trying to make one is what sustains Mariah Carey for the remaining 11 months of the year. It’s not just the stress of cooking the crown jewel of holiday meals that prolongs the end-of-year fatigue, it’s also the Capitalist charade of buying presents for your family. If you still think it’s the thought that counts, you’re a terrible gift giver and either no one loves you enough to tell you to your face, or you’re the kind of person who physically can’t hear feedback, doesn’t indicate, or simply lacks the capacity for empathy. If that hurts, remember, it’s just a thought and doesn’t count. Maybe you can include being a better gift giver in your New Year’s resolutions?

Of all the excuses to catch up with friends, stay up late, drink too much and make rushed promises that will haunt you for the rest of the year, New Year’s Eve is the worst. And I thought that was widely accepted as fact but year after year, parties are planned, attended and considered a roaring success, I guess, because why else would they return year after year? I’d rather celebrate the end of financial year than pretend December 31st is worthy of a hangover. It would be easier to muster the kind of deranged giddiness accounting software marketing managers spew for EOFY than another round of the new year charade. One of the things that makes NYE so sad is the way the excited build up and subsequent anticlimax mirrors the end of summer holidays and our return to work. Making a bunch of resolutions only makes it worse as we remember it’s already time to start another year of work (and working on ourselves)– it’s exhausting.

But it’s not all so bad. Somehow, by the end of the summer break, we do feel refreshed. Heavy comfort-food-filled stomachs and the looming, sobering deadline of returning to work anchor light hearts buoyed by the fading promise of Summer’s start, the memory of long days swimming at the beach, BBQs, picnics and the spontaneous nights of revelry you’ll think about when people ask you how your break was. But overeating for so many weeks has inspired us to pick up the goals we’ve let linger for the rest of the year mainly because in a shockingly small number of days, it’s 2023 and remember when post-apocalyptic movies used to be set now? Remember when we used to think about how great the future would be one day thanks to all the technological advancements not-so-secretly created at the expense of the planet to the benefit of a handful of billionaires at the head of amoral corporations? But this time in history isn’t so bad, is it? We’re all sitting here together in this beautiful pot of actually quite warm water, Mariah Carey is screaming about Christmas and the promise of a fresh start in the new year is peering out from behind NYE’s promise of one last tiring disappointment. I guess what I’m trying to say is Happy Holidays.

So yeah, it’s fine, Christmas is fine — New Year’s isn’t — but it’s fine and that is what I think about when I think about happy holidays.