Interregnum: Time for the Regular Reminder to Breathe

December. Here you are, you massive bully, you. Fall? We hardly knew you. Blown out by the cold, reaching fingers of wind from the north… shaking out the last of the leaves and replacing the autumn glow with sharp blue ice-pack light lancing across brittle lawns in long shadows. It just feels late all day. Dark in the afternoon early.
And yet… if you close your eyes and listen? Jingling of bells! Or is it the jingling of coins tumbling in tills across the land as the holiday gift buying frenzy revs up and sweeps through.

But first, we hang now for a bit in the time between. The interstitial. The time of year when pumpkins AND holiday lights and dec occupy lawns and porches in strict violation of The Code. Ya’ll, just stop. Find a good compost pile or farm with animals and give those cuties their next, best home before you throw open the Christmas closet and unleash the inflatables. Literally, give it —and yourself— a rest. It is totally understandable to want to dive in to the best parts of December celebrating, but it is not advisable nor really even possible to do ALL OF THE THINGS. Pick a few. Do those well. Spend more time and less money. Be more present and less into presents. Bring light and fewer light displays. Bring change, but give all the dollars you can to the worthiest places and not just change at the red bucket. It feels really, really good.

Having (hopefully) survived the first of the grand high Holler-days and put family pressure and Thanksgiving behind us like the well picked turkey carcass, we are about to hit the slalom ski run accelerating to the next. A time to breathe in the crisp air— before being overwhelmed with Cinnamon and Spruce scented breezes. A time to plot out shipping schedules which determines buying schedules which determines, oh god, wrapping schedules. Wrapping… woof. Breathe…. breathe…
Thankfully, there seems to have been a turning point in corporate thought and fewer large retailers are open on Thanksgiving Day proper. Maybe forced by executives newly aware of workers who deserve fair wages and benefits, or maybe newly aware of workers at all — find that their workers need and want celebrations with their own families and friends, so have curtailed crazy open hours and Black Friday etc and many people have opted to shop from home or limit time out, so the frenetic pace of “normal" holiday shopping is subdued… one good thing from the pandemic. This quieter holiday season should allow a pause for reflection on just how crazy the pressures to consume have been heretofore.

This year,too, many, many more folks felt free to travel to see long missed relatives for Thanksgiving. Laudably, a majority were vaccinated. Many were left with the impossible choice of seeing people or risking their own, like children under five, who could not yet be vaccinated or those who put others at risk by willfully choosing to go without. Christmas will likely be the same. Or worse. Dependent of variants etc. Sigh… So, while it is possible "we all can be together… if the fates allow...” the virus may intervene— For us, that means putting the best parts of the season to top of our list, and Santa’s list, and anyone’s list.

To begin, we suggest —powerfully suggest— nigh unto insisting— that people take a moment and enjoy the post T Day November and slightly into December interregnum. Before Fa la la laing and so forth, take the time to recollect, to plan, map out what is most important in the holiday to do that silly-word-thing: self care. Make this liminal time all about you for a couple of days —then make it all about everyone else. You cannot pour from an empty cup… truth.

The interregnum between family pressure filled Holler-days is a good time to spend moments to yourself, assessing what can be done, what needs to be done and what can you can let go!

Hereforth a short list of things you know. These are good and good for you! We are moms and we are legion— so we scold. Get over it.

Put away ideas about must-dos and tradition this year. We are handing out dispensation and special licenses. Sift out what is important for safety and sanity. Make do. Decorate in small doses with what you have and what you find with natural materials. It really does something for our souls to be out in nature and to bring nature inside.

Take time now to assess your project list and pet the cat… or else.

Hey— send cards. Send Happy New Year if you aren’t about the holiday or worry the intentionally hobbled, but limping along USPS won’t deliver on time. It’s a holiday SEASON— there is plenty of time and it is never wrong to show someone you care.

While you are at it, thank your posties, friends. They really do their best… in all kinds of weather… and are a lifeline for a lot of folks who don’t or can’t email etc. Put a card for them in your mailbox— doesn’t have to be holiday themed if you worry about giving offense (and we love that you do).

Normalize shopping local, patronizing artists and artisans, give from the Second Market, make things to share… above all listen to the message of the season still lovely, if a little lost in profit driven orgy of consumption. Why do we gift at all?

Drop a card of thanks to those who support your everyday life— the docs office, the vet, the tire repair folks… whomever. It is lovely to do so in person and provide a smiling face with the sentiment— but we don’t advocate being out in the current atmosphere too much. Besides, they won’t see your smile behind your mask…. you ARE wearing a mask, right?

Take some dreamy moments to yourself before things get hectic. Enjoy the transition and the recommit to helping or valuing others. This Thanksgiving arrangement will become part of a wreath gifted on.

Read a book a day to your children for 24 days until Christmas. Don’t have 24? Libraries hand ‘em out for free!

Read a book to a shelter pet.

Read a book.

Find a giving tree or equivalent and make someone else’s holiday as jolly—or jollier— than your own. Involve your children in picking out things for kids their own age so they have the joy of imagining some one like themselves feeling special and loved on a holiday.

Pay it forward when you can. We love paying the shipping for someone rushing to get something special to a family member and unprepared for the cost. We are on call at the local shippers especially on behalf of Santa for children’s gifts that need to be in time.

Find out EXACTLY what is needed at your local food bank. The volunteers and staffs of these amazing life-giving centers know what works and what will clutter the shelves. They often have insight into Benevolent and/or Community resource that are set up to equitably and reliably distribute aid to those who need it most.

an autumnal meditation

This is the second Fall season of a pandemic that radically changed our lives in varying ways. Last year was rough. Not going to lie. We dug deep and found ways to move forward, to hold what was important more closely— but in new ways. We scrambled a bit trying to figure out how to newly create our treasured traditions and celebrations amongst strange, new constraints. We are not just talking sourdough bread baking, or plastic film hugging walls, but zoom rooms and screen meals and outside picnic parties with china. This year we have more time and wisdom on our sides. We can plan ahead, take the best that last year taught us — let’s go with more intentional, conscious decisions about what matters, who matters most, and how to put that, and them, altogether first, amen.

Meditation: What kind of Fall do YOU want? Drop down the Beauty lenses, activate the “everything is up for change” vision. Look around with those fresh eyes. "Have to”s for celebrations are out the window and a new way of doing sprawls before you. Time honored traditions are wearing new shoes, dancing to new tunes… Avoid the stores and maskless hordes and make your own fall decor! How about a Thanksgiving picnic? Who doesn’t love a turkey sandwich with cranberry relish? Oh, and hand pies… Leaf it to us, we’ll lead the way!

Over the next few weeks, we’ll drop some posts with how-tos for make-dos and make withs what you’ve got that last from the first of Fall through Thanksgiving…In the meantime, wrap yourself in everything Autumn, gather up some pods, and corn, and other naturey bits and bobs to bring inside to honor all you’ve weathered this year. Be gourd to yourself, punkin’, and each other.