Limbo Week 12/28/08

Limbo Week

The week between Christmas and New Years is a free pass. My 5 year old neice taught me this great truth. I wish I had figured this out long ago. I would have had a lot more fun. On Christmas evening she was reminded to "watch out". Here reply was "Why? Santa has already come." She is right you know. As soon as Santa arrives, you are free to misbehave with no danger of ending up on the naughtly list, until the strike of 12 on New Year's Eve. You see, Santa's nice and naughty lists are for the year, and the week between Christmas and the new year is still apart of the old year. It appears as if Santa's record keeping of our deeds takes a week break. What do we do with our limbo week, our 7-day, free pass for the year?

Most of us do as little as possible. Sleep in, sit, look at the mess & the Christmas decorations, watch tv, eat all the left overs - no need to cook for at least a week. Some of us go on vacation, skiing, or somewhere tropical. Why don't we make the most of our limited time? Have a whole week of Carnival-like sin and excitment?? Or how about just trying some new things, before we have to give them a name, like "new year's resolution", test out our new selves before we have to make any sort of commitment to feel guilty about when we break?

Here are a few ideas:

Give up a bad habit. Just try for the week. Don't tell anyone. Most of us are off work or school, so it is a good time to be cranky. Try to give up caffeine or sugar or something. In virtual seculusion you can be as mean and as surly as you want and it won't effect your job or your grades. Your family might wonder what is going on and banish you to the attic. Which is the perfect place to try out yoga with no one watching.

Try a new hobby, like yoga. No one will notice if you stink at Ballet if it is over by January 1. If you discover you have some hidden talent for oil painting, you can start the new year with a week already under your belt.

Dye your hair. I don't mean something subtle to hide the gray (yes, you have gray hairs). I am talking radical. Go bleach blond, or flaming red. I actually did this once on New Year's Eve. It was over so fast there isn't even a photo to record that I once had strawberry blond hair. It was chocolate brown again by January 1st.

Enjoy some guilty pleasures. Go ahead, indulge - eat that chocolate cake. It won't last another week, and by Jan 2nd you will be on to your new diet. Plus the next time someone bakes you a cake that good will be your birthday, months away.

Go to the movies during the day. No one is really working this week anyway. Those of you at your desk are just surfing the net spending your holiday gift cards, or looking at youtube for something to entertain you. Take a nap. Read a book. Play.

After all, this is the wisdom of a 5 year old. Play is what they do best. The kids are home from school and there are all those new toys to checkout. Go ahead - live a little - its Limbo Week.