That Holiday Spirit

Savoring and extending the coziest time of year

For the last two weeks, I slowed down my mornings: drinking tea while sitting by the foggy windows, walking my dog up and down the canals and getting hazelnut coffees, reading over breakfast. I’ve been the opposite of a morning person for my entire life, but - thanks to a sleep reset program my husband designed for me - I’ve been sleeping more in sync with the daylight hours and am furious to report that going to bed early and waking up early seems to improve my mental wellbeing tremendously. The extra slowness has made the bonus morning hours a real gift, and knowing I won’t be jumping directly into the hectic helps pull me out of bed on cold mornings. I hope you’ve found your own ways to slow down over these past weeks, big and small, and found more space to breathe as a result. If you have, let me know - email me at kari@karileibowitz.com.

December is here, so fall is officially moving into the rear-view mirror and we’re really ramping up into the holiday season. Whether you celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah or Yule or the Solstice or nothing at all, there’s no escaping the fact that the winter holidays seem to have permeated American culture thoroughly. And there’s lots of non-denominational, trans-religious things to enjoy about this time of year. In Amsterdam the lights have been up for a few weeks now, brightening the darkest days of the year, and the city is feeling festive and golden. In Germany, where I’m visiting Christmas markets to drink mulled wine and call it research, steaming mugs abound. Stateside, my future sister-in-law is beginning her baking frenzy, and over the next few weeks she’ll make hundreds of cookies in a dozen varieties to gift to family, friends, and coworkers.

While this time of year can come with many challenges - loneliness, family conflict, nostalgia, or grief - it is also often the time of winter that people love the most. Not only because winter is fresh and new - we’re not sick of it yet - but also because of the winter holidays and all the traditions and rituals people look forward to. My Aunt Karen transforms her log cabin into a Christmas wonderland (truly, no detail is overlooked: the shower-curtain even gets swapped for one that is Christmas themed). In San Francisco, my roommates and I spent weeks preparing for our annual Latkes & Vodkas party by turning 85lbs of potatoes into over 500 fried, golden, potato pancakes and infusing vodka with cinnamon and ginger. In Norway, it’s the season of pepperkaker - gingerbread - and they take the art form of gingerbread houses to the next level with “peperkakebyen,” gingerbread cities that contain whole neighborhoods, soccer stadiums, and even ferris wheels. 

I was recently talking to someone who pointed out that so much of what we love about the winter holidays aren’t just the holidays themselves, but the holiday season surrounding them. The actual day of the holidays themselves may be all you hoped for: special and cozy, restful, a container for core memories. But sometimes they’re just fine, or even disappointing. But the nice thing about the way the winter holidays bleed into weeks of lead-up time is that they make a season. We’re officially in the “holiday season,” now, a special part of winter that I think has a lot to teach us about how we can winter better in January, February, and March - after the holidays are long behind. The things we enjoy most about this time of year contain secret lessons for making winter special even after Christmas trees hit the curb and menorahs are packed away. 

Your challenge for the next two weeks is to spend some time getting into the holiday season while really paying attention to what you find most joyful at this time of year. So much of shifting our mindsets around winter is about noticing: what thoughts are making winter worse, what practices are making winter better. By attending to what we enjoy at this time of year, we can tap into what winter strategies will be most effective for us if we find ourselves feeling the winter blues. 

Savoring the Holiday Season

Step 1: Get into the spirit.

Get into the spirit of the holiday season - whatever that means for you. Maybe it means decorating your house for the holidays. Maybe it means watching Christmas romcoms. Maybe it means starting to search for or craft the perfect gifts for loved ones, or ordering holiday cards and writing notes to family and friends, or baking up a storm. You might be doing this already, but, whatever you choose, spend at least a few hours over the next few weeks making it special and deliberate, leaning in and savoring wherever possible.

Step 2: Notice what you like best about the holiday season.

Really attend to what you enjoy about this time of year, and start thinking about how you might carry this with you after the holidays are over. If it’s decorating for the holidays, you can continue cozy-fying your space even after the holiday decorations come down. If it’s the holiday parties, you can host or organize gatherings with friends or family in January (there’s no rule that says you can only have parties in December). If it’s watching familiar, cozy movies, you can make it a point to have snuggly movie nights in the New Year. Consider the non-holiday-season version of whatever you’re enjoying even as you savor the holiday flavor now, to help inspire ways to keep the season merry and bright during the long nights of January and February.

Don’t forget: I want to hear what you do and how it goes. How are you getting into the holiday season, and how might you carry this with you in a month or two when the holidays are over? You can share your experience here, or email me directly at kari@karileibowitz.com.

Notes from the slush pile:

This beautiful, wintery poem by Mary Oliver, sent to me by my friend Becky, provides inspiration for a winter walk, and then returning home to warm up:

maryoliverpoetrypage

A post shared by @maryoliverpoetrypage

If you’re still struggling with the winter darkness, check out this USA today article about how a trip to Finland helped this author embrace the long night, featuring my research.

Last time, I mentioned the cozy miracle that is the hot water bottle. If you got one between then and now, you might also need a cosymajig to keep your hot water bottle close.