Is there any American adult who truly enjoys the period between Thanksgiving and New Years’ Day? Someone who finds that the holidays live up to their expectations? Someone who gets a kick out of the shopping, baking, cooking, visiting, wrapping, traveling, giving and receiving?
Without stress?
I haven’t talked to anyone like that lately.
So I wonder why we go through the motions every year, the suffering every year, the feeling that we are somehow not meeting our family’s and friends’ expectations of us?
The only two ways I ever think of to cope are: 1) to jump in and embrace it all, becoming a pusher myself; or 2) to hide.
There has got to be a better way.
Suppose I create a new holiday of my own? One that lasts exactly from Black Friday to January 2? (This year we'd have to back up one day to include Hanukkah.)
Let’s call this holiday Darkening.
The custom during the weeks of Darkening is to practice frugality, spending money only on necessities. Even charities will have to wait until Darkening is over instead of bombarding us with requests for end-of-the-year donations.
Throughout Darkening, we do not give. We do not receive.
Darkening is a time for quiet reflection. We stay at home or take walks silently in the snowy woods. If you live in a warmer clime, forget the snow but not the silence.
Darkening is a time to keep to oneself, or to meet in small groups of two, three or four. No larger assemblages are allowed.
Darkening is a time to look within. A time to slow down. A time to assess.
One of the challenges of Darkening is learning how to do nothing. Instead of filling the shortened days with more activity and more chores, we take things away. We do less.
The goal is to eventually do nothing. Then we will have achieved the true spirit of Darkening.
