Saturday, December 23, 2023

The Saturday Morning Post: Rest Ye Merry Gentlepersons 13


Maybe Santa has heard one to many Christmas carols, "all he wants for Christmas" is a nice rest. The season can be fatiguing.  Many of us feel obligations, and strains at this time of the year, when what we really want is a quiet day and some rest.  

About 20 years ago, I had enough of family pressures, cracked one year, and booked a week in Paris over Christmas.  It was gave us a reason to not feel obligated to be here or there.  We spent the time we wanted the way we wanted. I was a little concerned that my parents would be upset, instead they bragged to their friends that I was in Paris for Christmas.  We had Christmas dinner on the Eiffel Tower.  

Since then, we have done a better job of being where we want to be, with those we want to be with.  Still I find myself fatigued by all of it.  I did wait until well into December before switching my background music to Christmas music, and banned Mariah Carey from my feed. I am hoping that my enthusiasm for the holidays will grow in retirement.  

My wish for you, is that you spend the holiday season doing what you want to do.  Find time to rest and be good to yourself.  "Rest Ye Merry Gentlepersons." 

 

20 comments:

  1. Rest YE merrry gentleperson! Looks like Santa needs his second wind.

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    1. Someone turned the blower off.

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  2. I have always enjoyed the family "obligations" at Christmastime. An obligation does not have to be onerous, it can be life-affirming and joyous.

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    1. Then there was mom.

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    2. I don't understand that response.

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    3. Some mothers can be rather stress inducing over the holidays.

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  3. We always have a time of it at Thanksgiving, people over, going to other's homes, so Christmas is a quiet, peace-filled day with the two of us and the pets.
    And that's how we like it.
    Merry Ho Ho Ho.

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  4. That photo of the deflated Santa made me laugh out loud for longer than I care to admit!

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  5. I feel like that deflated Santa but now all my family is here and it is the most wonderful time of the year! Ho ho ho! I listen to Christmas music in the house but when I'm in the car, it's rock 'n roll. (Trying to keep the balance).

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    1. I have been varying the music this year.

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  6. Such good advice and I LOVE the idea of being in Paris for Christmas. London would work too. I need to think about that.
    PS: your comment about that car outside the restaurant made me laugh. They wouldn't park my car up there in full view. It would be hidden in the overflow lot.

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    1. The difference between your car, and the blue one, is your's is paid for. It got you there and got you home just the same. A friend did London for the holidays last year.

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  7. The tule fog is forming and chilling me to the bone and it is leaf muck season so walking the dog is dlightly treacherous. Small wonder that Joan Didion wrote "Anybody who talks about California hedonism has never spent a Christmas in Sacramento. "

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    1. The coldest winter was a May in San Francisco

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  8. This is the third year in a row of a relaxing holiday I've had. The job I'm in now really helps. I spent the first half of today making stollen for Christmas morning. The nut rolls yesterday.

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  9. I am writing this Christmas Eve afternoon. I am rawther exhausted. I am settling down for a long winters nap right now before I try anything else.

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