Let’s stop jumping from one holiday to another

Jennifer Ditlevson Haglund

For those who celebrated Christmas this year, most activities should be over after recuperating from the New Year’s parties. It’s back to the usual — except that it’s already time to start thinking about Valentine’s Day.

On Christmas night, I walked around the block and saw the pharmacy open. Heart-shaped boxes wrapped in red cellophane lined the shelves two rows from the overstock Christmas cards.

After seeing those chocolates and wondering about their quality and shelf life, I realized that the Christmas gifts I sent to my mother and my in-laws still haven’t made it to their doors. And now there is another holiday to consider.

I’ve worked in retail, so I know the marketing calendar. It’s common to make way for the next holiday before the one at hand has passed. Making a big deal about holidays and convincing people that they need to shop early is the standard business model in the United States.

It’s too easy to blame everything on sales campaigns and commercialism in general for the shrinking intervals between holidays. The reason retailers are so effective in advertising is that someone working for the marketing research firms they consult hire psychologists or human behavior analysts to explain why people want to live lives alternating between anticipation and celebration.

I get it. There aren’t any major holidays in the Western calendar I purposefully overlook, and I love finding ways to get festive.

Often, I have been the person to dress in costumes or in theme when no one else would. As a child, I loved attending Purim festival with a good friend and visiting Cleveland to attend the street fairs in Little Italy for various feast days. Learning about religious and cultural holidays unfamiliar to me teaches me about how others have fun and how they worship.

The desire to party is natural and somehow, fundamentally human. Last week, I told my mother that my daughter’s favorite thing in life is to have a good time.

“Isn’t that the goal?” she replied.

We both started laughing, but we knew she didn’t make the remark entirely in jest. She’s the one who I know who has been most determined to live, regardless of difficulty, with a wild, childlike effervescence. Holidays only enlarge her spirit. She and my father made sure we had Halloween costumes and Valentine’s Day boxes. Christmastime in our home was sacred, and it couldn’t come soon enough.

But that kind of enthusiasm is not sustainable or healthy. When I think of all the fun my daughter had and all the extra sugar she ate this year over Christmas, I know she needs the normal schedule to resume.

Skipping from one holiday to the next does allow less room for the letdown some people feel after the suspense and stress decrease. By trading Santas and stars for Cupids and hearts on Christmas night, there’s no lag in ambiance or obligation. The former appeals to the sentimental and Pinterest guru, and the latter annoys the curmudgeon.

Holidays promise rest, but it’s rare that most get very much of it with visiting family, traveling, buying, cooking, cleaning, or planning. Too many people have to keep working right through as well. So, if it’s not tranquility that people seek in holidays, it must be something else.

I guess it’s avoiding the dull, everyday grind. If that’s how you feel about life, always having a party gives you something to await.

Yet without mundane periods lapsing between holidays, I find it difficult to process and prepare for the return to the schedule, let alone the next special day. When I haven’t even put away the dishes from Christmas dinner and I’m being rushed to think of the next thing, I can’t exit the season on my own time. After Christmas, I especially want my last few moments to enjoy the mood.