So today is the first night of Hanukkah (and a few days before Christmas). I got out our ever-growing collection of dreidels. Wrapped the Hanukkah presents and put them under our Christmas tree. (Yes, our family is that shamelessly interfaith). Put the menorah in a prominent place, candles by its side, ready to be lit. Waiting now for my son and husband to come back home from Karate and work to celebrate.
And — after all the wrapping and the running around —Â for a moment there I suddenly find my excitement waning.
This year I think I am a little more impatient with the holidays than usual. Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year, all of them. They feel like too much of a chore — last-minute shopping, all the crazy cooking, etc.
Holidays pull me away from my writing, when all I want to do is fly ahead into my current project — fly, fly, fly! And then write the next story! And then that other one that has been waiting its turn for years now!
But then I look down under the sturdy floor underneath my feet and remind myself that sometimes it’s okay to fold your wings and breathe in that smell of cooking. Holidays are there for a reason. I remind myself that work — even if it’s beautiful, magical, dream-work — can take you only so far.
Writers like Isaac Asimov and Jane Yolen famously contended that if they knew they had only minutes to live they would just write faster. Me? When I take a moment to consider it, I realize that if these were my last moments on earth, I’d let those untold stories go. I’d gather around with my kids and husband, just sit with them on the floor of our living room maybe, and just hold them, all quiet and breathing with my family.
Well, thankfully — hopefully — my dying moment is far enough away. Far enough, I hope, that I’ll get to write down those poor stories that are waiting their turn. But holidays are — or can be — the times to pull away, as though the world is about to stop turning.
Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year, Kwanzaa, Yule, each holiday has its own reason, its own truth, its own story. And yet sometimes I think we are all celebrating the same thing here. We are celebrating love, and life, and warmth despite the cold outside, and the lights flickering in the darkness.
Happy holidays, everyone!
Katiaesque 
Leave a comment