The Holidays

I was talking to a colleague yesterday who is just overwhelmed with all that comes with the holidays.  We talked about doing less and she told me about times she had tried to keep it very simple in the early years of her marriage and the holidays just didn't feel right.

I don't share that sentiment.  I am quite content with the quiet on the holidays.  Even while married, there were years we did very little, especially the years we lived so far away from home, and I maybe even enjoyed those years more.  But I seem to be an anomaly as every year I sit still while everyone else around me hustles and bustles.

What I am realizing though, this year, is that in their busyness people stop checking in on me and when I reach out, their responses are brief and a bit superficial.  My last substantial contacts with many of them go back to mid-October.  So it's not just spending the holidays themselves in quiet, it's an entire season of quiet.  And maybe that's a little too much quiet.