Preach it, brother. Especially unexpected days off where the emails aren’t piling up because everyone else is working but you’re not.
As a Federal worker, I can’t tell you how much I loved the government shutdown last fall. Two weeks off work, but the schools were open so I could get a bunch of stuff done around the house during the day and still find time for a nap and some reading, and have time and energy to do stuff with the Firebug in the evenings. And when the government reopened, I wasn’t two weeks behind everyone else. (And we wound up getting paid, which was icing on the cake.) It was the best vacation ever.
The current continuing resolution expires on December 11. I’m hoping…
I went with “Some personal, state or cultural celebration that isn’t celebrated nationally.” Personal, specifically - the day I regard as my spiritual birthday. That warm September night more than four decades ago when my world changed is my touchstone, and when its anniversary rolls around each year, I reflect on who and what I am, and what sort of direction my life is taking. The celebration is mostly an interior celebration, but it’s real enough to me.
Every year for the last 12 or 15 or so I spend 5 days with friends in Lexington KY forRolex (it’s a horse thing). I go alone, leaving my husband, pets, and all my responsibilities behind.
That Wednesday morning that I climb in the car and head out is THE best day of the year, hands down.
The day after Thanksgiving. All the work is over, and there’s enough food left over that I don’t have to cook. Family and friends are already gathered, and the stores are insane so we’re all just hanging around the house. No work, no chores, and a long weekend still ahead with more of the same.
My favorite is the last day of school before summer vacation. I don’t go to school these days and haven’t in many years, but Fridays in the middle of June make me remember the unadulterated joy I felt at walking home from school on that last day, knowing the whole summer stretched in front of me with its promise of playing at the beach, riding my bike all over town and hours of just goofing off.
I’m planning to retire in a few years, and I would love to work my very last day in June, knowing that the summer - and the rest of my life! - lies ahead of me. Beach, biking and goofing off will still be big agenda items.
I like that almost everyone is off work, families are together, people are focused on something other than what we normally focus all our attention on (our problems, celebrities, politics, etc). Everyone just tries to relax and have a good time. Like someone else said earlier, it is like thanksgiving and everyone’s birthday rolled into one.
The buildup to a holiday is better than the holiday itself anymore, at least for me. When Christmas day starts to end around 8pm (all the gifts are opened, people are getting ready for bed, the feasts have all been eaten, people are going home) I start feeling sad because I know the festivities are over. The buildup is so much better.
For me it’s the first day of vacation where I reach “escape velocity”–when all the lingering BS from work evaporates and I can settle in to the feeling of being free and being in the moment for the next couple of days or weeks.
When my husband and my family were all still alive and my sons still lived at home, nothing could beat Christmas. Now that everyone is gone except my sons, and they are both married and spend Christmas with their in-laws, it’s become Thanksgiving. I get the Thanksgiving visit.
The first day of the NCAA basketball tournament. No, not the play in games, that first Thursday is the best. Starting at about noon, it is food, drinks and 16 basketball games, followed by 16 more on Friday and 16 more over the weekend. I always take those 2 days off of work, but that Thursday is always the best.
