Winter Solstice: A Holiday from The Holidays™️

Every year, after we fall back from the end of Daylight Savings, I find myself suddenly exhausted. I say suddenly only because I become aware of it suddenly — in fact, it’s usually been creeping up me since late summer, sneaking past all my favorite fall activities unnoticed. My bones feel heavier, my brain feels sluggish, and it takes even more effort than usual for me just to reach a baseline of feeling like a human being.

Naturally, this all occurs as the Holiday Season™️ pushes forward, laughing maniacally, fucking up my bank account, screaming in jarring colors and packed spaces and close-contact viruses, encouraging indulgence and celebration while simultaneously shaming you so you’ll perform your annual penitence in the new year, setting yourself up to fail again, just like you always do.

Looking back, I’ve almost always felt burned out and dried up in late fall, longing for the year to just go ahead and end already so I can pull out that fresh, blank calendar, so full of possibilities and potential. And now that it is finally starting to be more acceptable to talk about slowing down and resting when you need it, I’ve realized what this depletion means for me: I need to hibernate a while.

I’ve always found the concept of hibernation fascinating — hiding yourself away for a while to sleep and ride out the cold and darkness until it’s time for the light to return. Imagine tucking yourself in and just resting quietly for as long as you need to, as the rest of the world spins by. This works great for bears and other mammals, but for humans? Apparently things like socialization and community get us through cold months more effectively, and I don’t disagree, but because we are humans, we’ve managed over the centuries to fuck it up royally.

So this year, I’ve been trying to allow myself to hibernate a bit, to accept the rest I know I need, not as a personal failing but as part of a natural cycle. Humans ebb and flow just like the tides, feel the changing seasons like so many other living creatures, but somehow we think we’re immune to it, we’re better than that. We invented permanent daylight, why should we ever let the rhythms of the world affect us anymore? Because even with all *gestures wildly* this, those things still affect us as living beings, whether we want to admit it or not.

And what’s more, what’s better in my opinion, is that they remind us that the earth is alive, we are part of it, and what it does affects us on a cellular level. There’s a snowstorm brewing in the Midwest in these next few days before Christmas, and what if, instead of trying to fight through it or fly against it to our own peril, we just let it happen, observed it, and accepted it?

I know that this is a luxury few humans actually have anymore — people need to work to stay alive, they need a home to shelter them, money to pay for heat and light just to exist this time of year. I know that my romantic ideal of resting cozily in a cave with a fire for six weeks is not what our ancestors actually experienced or even survived. Winter is hard, and scary, and dangerous in many ways, and for me, the conflagration of holiday cheer sometimes erases this fact of our need to just survive in this season.

So on this Solstice, the longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, I suggest taking some time to rest a little, however you can. Maybe don’t be too hard on yourself if you don’t make it to the gym this week or beat yourself up if you have more sweets or snacks than usual. See what it feels like to not overachieve the next few days, be it with work or your family or any other area that’s pressing onto you relentlessly. Give your nervous system, that ancient but vital cord of energy, some quiet time. If there’s one day of the year you can do this for yourself, let it be the Solstice.

Because tomorrow, the darkness will recede a bit. There will be a few moments more of light as our part of the earth gently and gradually tilts back towards the sun. It’s still winter, and maybe you need this whole week, the remainder of the year, even into January or February to let yourself acknowledge and feel into the ways the natural world affects you on an elemental level. Celebrate, sure. Gather with loved ones, always. But a holiday also indicates a break, a pause, a time to rest and recalibrate. Give yourself a holiday from The Holidays™️, if that’s what you need to keep going and keep showing up in this world. The days will get brighter sooner than you expect.