Coyoacan        The end of every year is a nice time, despite the news of the day refusing to bring the peace that is almost its hallmark.  There’s some closure, some time for contemplation, some time for family, rest, and relaxation.  Rather than trying to keep up, we’re able to pretend for a minute that we’ve pulled ahead.

For over forty years, since the children were born, if not before, I’ve taken the bulk of may vacation in the two weeks around Christmas and New Years.  There was no day care, so it made sense.  Work pressure was less, and in fact organizationally, decades ago we recognized the reality that no real work was getting done and made the week between Christmas and New Year’s a mandatory part of everyone’s vacation allotment in the union and other operations.  Schools were out, everything was slowing down, meetings were being postponed, grievances were fewer, there seemed to be a collective consensus to put everything off until the new year, and we went with it.

Waking up to email messages every morning slowed to a trickle, turning off the fire hose.  WhatsApp is filled with good wishes rather than urgent requests and action reports.  Regular Zoom meetings are pull off and phone calls incoming and outgoing are reduced to only the most urgent.  It’s good times all around.

For years, I’ve lured our family into collective vacations, mostly successfully, by putting big pieces of cheese in the trap, so that they will all join with us and go somewhere.  It finally gives us a collective catchup time.  They all kid me about my constant lobbying to take advantage of the time for one or more family meetings, but I take it in stride, because if now, when do I have a “captive” audience. Coming up with my family, such meetings were unknown or at best, 50s style, diktats or announcements of change:  moving from Colorado to Kentucky or from there to Louisiana.  Who can get away with that now?  Who would want to do?  With all of us in the same city, some might thing that the flow of information and planning would be constant and seamless, but that would be totally wrong.  Where we work together, much of those coms are purely and simply work-related.  Even as neighbors, we have to try to schedule 7am coffee visits when I happen to be in town on a Thursday.  People are busy.  Times are chaotic.  End of the year plans and priority revisits are critical.

It’s also a time for dealing with one-off tasks and cleanup.  I look myself up on Google once a year and check Wikipedia annually, to see where things stand.  I throw bank statements, tax and insurance receipts, and the like in a stack on the floor, so finally it’s the time to sort them, stash them in files and the like.  It’s time to work on the personal and organizational calendar for the year, and see how to align them all, as well as to begin the year-end, year begin reports.  We’re not talking about resolutions now, we’re talking about maintenance.

Then there’s reading, no longer restricted to the odd times while eating breakfast, sitting in a plane, or working out on an elliptical machine, but enabled whenever I’m darned ready.  And, of course, naps at will and whim.  This year was a bit different because I’m dinged up my shoulder on my last roll through DC’s Dulles airport in route to Canada, so my style was seriously crimped for the first five or six days on my vacation.  Now, finally, I can perhaps in my last week wrap my arms around the special project I usually reserve for these holidays.  This time, it’s putting the finishing touches on the abridged version of Nuts and Bolts.

Taking a breath.  Assessing the year and planning the next.  Resting and recharging.  This is the time of year for all of that, when things slowdown and many are doing the same, making it all such a special and favorite time of the year.