The Season Of Limbo

The week between Christ­mas and New Year’s is the Sea­son of Limbo. I decided to name it that. It fits. It isn’t Christ­mas but kind of is, and it is not New Year’s, but it might as well be. There is a week to kill in between. Many peo­ple have to work those days as nor­mal, but there is noth­ing ter­ri­bly nor­mal about it. The Christ­mas tree goes from look­ing fes­tive to smack­ing of a take-down chore. Lights begin to dis­ap­pear, and the Jan­u­ary drab starts to take over like a dark­en­ing Alfred Hitch­cock night. The week between is the creak­ing silence of an ice­berg in the path of the Titanic.

There now, don’t you feel better!

The art of liv­ing in limbo is quite an art. What goes up must come down, but there is at least one more good party to attend. The trash cans along the street tell the tale of who got what for Christ­mas. Land­fill here we come (wrap­ping paper and some of the gifts from last year)!

Since I am pretty low key about Christ­mas, I don’t notice the Sea­son of Limbo much; how­ever I do see it in the eyes of peo­ple around me. It looks a lit­tle like some sort of stim­u­la­tion hang­over. Every­one looks like they need a good night’s sleep (which is exactly how I cel­e­brate New Year’s Eve).

For me, every­day is a lit­tle bit of every hol­i­day com­bined. My birth­day hap­pens every morn­ing that I wake up. The sun peeks over the hori­zon — every­day is Sun­day with some work, some play, and is sea­soned with a bit of wor­ship. God does not seem to clock in and clock out. The time clock is our deal. Maybe some folks need to com­part­men­tal­ize things a lit­tle more than I do. I cheer them on all the same.

Happy Limbo! You are caught between two time frames. Make the best of it. It will pass.