Holiday Hangover

While some of us recover from two, three, maybe four weeks of over-indulgence in food, drink and late nights, Katie has informed me that another type of holiday hangover exists for most personality types. It’s called the “Holidays messing with your routine and throwing you off your game in January” Hangover. I’ll think of something catchier later or maybe make it into an insane acronym —HMWYRATYOYGIJH — now that’s catchy. My initial thought was that the holidays throw Katie, Organic Freedom (NF), off her game because she’s not prepared for the holidays ahead of time unlike moi and other less smug Classics (SJ) (see my fabulous pre-holiday post) and therefore throws her regular routine under her Christmas sleighbus as she makes a mad dash to the Christmas finish line. I prefer my Christmas sleigh to be more of a laidback ride where you can almost see Bing Crosby in his Santa hat sitting next to me humming Christmas carols softly as the snow drifts around us.

To be fair, we all suffer from HMWYRATYOYGIJH a bit. Around Christmas I stop looking at my calendar for the next days activities before I go to bed or in the morning and therefore I  easily mess things up or forget appointments. I remember last year, I had a post Christmas mishap when I forgot a hair appointment. Then, today I forgot my son’s speech therapy started up again because he didn’t have school. This wouldn’t have been a problem IF I’d checked my calendar because it was there in black and white but we were not going to be back in time. I felt horrendous to cancel only a few hours beforehand. My HMWYRATYOYGIJH ends today or rather it always ends when I either do one mistake like the hair appointment or speech therapy OR it’s the first Monday after New Year’s.

As a Classic (SJ), I’m so stuck in routines that I literally still treat the two weeks around Christmas as if I was 6 years old and got those weeks off. I’m always amazed that anyone does anything during these two weeks. It’s Christmas vacation! And I’m not exactly a layabout. I’m the sort who works from her bed with pneumonia. I just feel the end of another year deserves proper relaxation. Like summer break after a school year. It’s practically the only thing un-American about me. But as I said, once vacation is over (or I screw up), it’s back to my routine and I dive into January. My birthday is right after New Years so I think of it as a time make a fresh start, to really rev up my routines that were disrupted by the holidays. Routines are my lifeblood without them I can miss hair and speech therapy appointments.

If my Organic Freedom (NF) sister is reading this, she’s probably laughing at my idea of vacation since I watched a movie with her while working on my computer over Christmas (umm, books don’t just write themselves!!). Her idea of vacation is probably literally no work but I know fully agrees with me on the two weeks. In fact, she’s more of a three-four week Christmas vacation person and if you include the length of her HMWYRATYOYGIJH, it stretches to February. If you made me guess, I’d say Katie really starts to get her act in gear toward the end of the first quarter (i.e., March). And I know she’s not alone because I’ve received mailed Christmas presents from a loved one in February on more than one occasion.   

One way for Classics (SJ), Organic Structures (NFJ) and Smart Structures (NTJ) to avoid HMWYRATYOYGIJH is to never stop looking at your calendar over holidays. For more rigid Classics like me this means Christmas day. Even if it’s just a glance at your iPhone in the morning before your kid tears into their gifts. It seems sacrilegious but never giving up your routine in the first place — or modifying them slightly — is one of the best ways to avoid losing your routines or making mistakes. And frankly when there’s literally nothing in your calendar, looking at it becomes a 5 second chore. Tops.

Now, as for the rest of you folks, Organic Freedoms (NFP), Smart Freedoms (NTP), and Funs (SP), some of you might not even be phased by it because you either don’t give up your routines because said routines are rather flexible anyway or you’re fine with getting your groove on in March. Only Classics, Organic Structures and Smart Structures would care if they were off their game or sent Christmas presents a few weeks late or you miss what you consider to be “non essential” appointments like your hair or your kid’s speech — I and likely all Classics, Organic Structures and Smart Structures would beg to differ because whenever you miss any appointment it messes with someone else’s life, time and calendar, it’s important. But then again this is a MAJOR area of conflict between these two personality groupings!!