The Slowness of December 23rd

When I was a kid December 23 was about the slowest day of the year. We almost certainly did not have school, but my Dad would have probably been at work, as long as it wasn’t a weekend. That meant that my sisters and I had to occupy ourselves as the minutes seemed to drag out the day.

The 23rd is nothing. The eve of a Christmas Eve is not a holiday. At least on Christmas Eve we had church and a big family dinner in the early years. Once I turned about 12 we started having our giant Christmas Eve party, but that is a story for another day. I am talking about when I was a big Santa fan and I could hardly wait for him to visit.

Despite the fact that we had plenty of toys to play with nothing seemed interesting on December 23. My sisters hated playing games with me since I was older and almost always won. The thought of reading a book made the day go even slower. We never had any friends over because they had Grandparents visiting, but we did not. It was just a miserable day.

Now that I am an adult I love December 23. It is a day that is still slow, but that slowness is a joy. I woke up early and went to three stores to buy the food for the a Christmas Eve and Christmas Day meals. I was home and done by 10:15 having beat all the crowds. No one was going to school and many people were not going to work so the roads were empty at 8 this morning.

I came home and made the peppermint ice cream and parsnip soup for future meals. After setting the dining room table I whiled away most of the afternoon working on my Christmas puzzle. The perfect disconnected thing to do to enjoy this quiet time.

I wish that we had set a puzzle up when I was a child. It might have helped me fill those slow December 23 hours waiting for the big show. Christmas will come and go in a blink of an eye, I want to try and slow it all down to enjoy every minute.