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Please let me holiday like I holiday
The holidays, vacation, winter break, Christmas break, etc. The period coming up later in December gets called many things in parts of the world that celebrate major holidays this time of year.
I saw someone on social media say welcome to looking for your dog’s poop using your phone flashlight season. As an evening dog walker myself, living in an area where it’s dark by 5pm this time of year, that hit hard.
Let me add one to the list. “Out of office reply” season.
There’s a whole lotta out of office time coming up. A whole lotta time away from work.
I had a difficult boss many, many years ago. In our first 1–1 meeting after returning from one such extended break, they asked me, “So, are you recharged? Ready to hit it even harder now that you’ve had some downtime?”
I thought about the three young kids I had at home, who my wife and I had somehow kept alive during their holiday break from school. I thought about the near-daily get-togethers with relatives. Of course we wanted to see family, but we also felt pressure to attend everything so we wouldn’t let anyone down. I thought about the all-night gift-wrapping session we’d pulled just to get it all done. The last-minute shopping. The cooking. The cleaning. The fact that it was my first Christmas without my grandma.
