Sunday, December 29, 2013

holidays on ice

We're about two-thirds through the holidays. Another week or so of business as not-usual.

The cheer! The stress! The dashed expectations and temper tantrums along with the smell of baking cinnamon and (insert your favorite yuletime treat). What a mixture of naughty and nice, right? Silver bells and hangovers. Sudden diarrhea and mistletoe. You just never know what's around the next bend during the holidays. Sometimes it's a breathtaking view of the mountains, a puppy experiencing snow for the first time, your usually text-obsessed teenager offering rosy cheeks and conversation because you're out of cell zone - and then, BOOM, your sister-in-law breaks her wrist when she falls on the ice. A mouse (or something) skitters up your arm during the middle of the night in the rustic cabin that seemed so idyllic just a few hours earlier.

It reminds me of one of my favorite holiday tunes:



So, what do you do with all that whiplash and rubber-banding? How do you unchap your wrapping paper-cut fingers? The tense shoulders and sciatica. I was hoping the electric neck pillow my mother sent for Christmas would vibrate away the crick, but, sadly, the crick is still there, like the dot on an exclamation point right next to the top of my aching spine.

Kirk dashed off to hot yoga as soon as we arrived home and unpacked from our cabin adventure. I needed to catch up on the Sunday paper (just so I could add two or three more popular culture top ten lists to my headcheese). I figured, while I was supposed to be extending my triangle pose, I'd be thinking about what I needed to get for dinner on the way home. Virtually clicking out the list on my iPhone "notes" section as opposed to taking deep cleansing breaths. So I declined. Again.

What I did instead (after confirming in the Book Review that, yet again, male authors dominate the Young Adult bestseller list, what is up with THAT?) was to give my refrigerator a deep cleansing breath. You know, pull out the toxins (in the form of fizzy salsa and calcified yogurt) and scrub off the gelatinous rings of who-the-fuck-knows-what from the various glass shelves. It was quite a workout. And extremely relaxing. All that was missing was the restorative savasana part at the end. In substitution, I popped out to our local grocer for next month's fridge purge because God abhors a clean refrigerator.

Ah, the holidays. Only a few more days left of overeating and drinking.

What do you do to destress during this festive season?


4 comments:

  1. Anonymous7:14 AM

    I didn't realize destressing was even an option! But your pic reminds me that my fridge needs a scrub-down, so there is still hope for the day.

    XO

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You have to make room for the champagne, sweets! Tomorrow is the day!!

      Delete
  2. I shop for myself. It's way consumer-ey and not very zen and the last thing i need is more stuff, but boy how i love buying books or stationery or a gigantic set of sharpies. i should do something about this in the new year. walking is a favorite, but it's so freakin' cold right now.

    i hope your SIL's wrist heals and you had a productive grocery trip. i love a cleaned out fridge, but hate the cleaning part.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, new Sharpies are the best. THE. BEST.

      Delete

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