My tribal ancestors launched several enduring ideas, such as monotheism and bagels, but maybe the best of all is Heshvan. Heshvan is a month on the Jewish calendar. It occurs late in the fall, and it is famous. What is it famous for? One thing: Heshvan contains no holidays.
Imagine it, one entire month with not a single holiday. No feast days to cook for, no fasts to pre-load for. No presents to wrap, no gifts to send, no parades to watch, no seasonal décor to hang. No mandatory family gatherings, no TV specials, no silly hats on waitresses and no themed sales on car lots. In Heshvan, everything you dislike about holidays is completely absent for one entire lunar month.
Couldn’t you use a little Heshvan right now? Wouldn’t you kill for one solid month of predictable five-day work weeks, punctuated by perfectly long-enough two-day weekends? Don’t you hunger for a get-it-done month, when the post office and the bank are open every single Monday, and the kids are in school every single Friday? (And what do teachers do on “in-service” days anyway?)
I’m past ready. Every year, the holidays come at us faster and closer together. Not half an hour separates one holiday from the next. Immediately after store Christmas displays are taken down, valentine cards and candy appear for a six-week run. By February 15, valentines are so yesterday and six weeks of Easter shopping begins.
It isn’t only store decorators who can’t keep their holidays apart. At least they clear away the Christmas course before setting out the valentines. But the rest of us don’t. Half the buildings in town (including my own, fully bicultural, home) sport their front-door Christmas wreaths well into late March.
Don’t get me wrong. I am neither Grinch nor Scrooge. Holidays can be done right. My idea of the perfect holiday would be a single day, strictly limited to 24 hours, consecrated to doing nothing and going nowhere. It would be like an Iraqi election day; nobody could drive their car on pain of being shot. It would be a misdemeanor to exchange anything more tangible than verbal greetings and a felony to decorate so much as a cake, much less the front lawn. And when would the perfect holiday be? Pick any day you want, as long as it’s not in Heshvan.
***
In slightly different form, this piece originally appeared
in the Addison Independent.
APOSTROPHE POLICE PLEASE NOTE:
In Massachusetts, it is officially Patriots' Day.
In Maine, it is Patriot's Day.
Well said! Can't stand the endless rumpus myself. I remember working in a publishing office in NYC at the tender age of 24 and being exhausted, already at that age, by the eternity of the holidays, work week cut short, and then New Year's shenanigans. I do better with routine....
ReplyDeleteI was about to offer March (my birthday is there), but just remembered St. Patrick's Day...
ReplyDeleteI like this idea very much, but am quite fond of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day celebration, all cartoonish elements aside.
To be honest, I have advocated the opposite: Black History deserves 4 months, not 1 !
Wonder where I can find a Merry Heshvan card for those contrarians who are going through holiday withdrawal. We do have a bit of time to prepare before this empty time encompasses our consciousness. I just hope we can get past all the labor day hoopla before we focus on Heshvan.
ReplyDeleteGreat idea. Alas, we have four months to go in our family. Think birthdays.
ReplyDelete