Celebrate with others, and as you wish

The wisdom of observing a holiday on different days

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is that there doesn't need to be attention between
celebrating with others and celebrating the way you might want to.

(00:25):
You can always just spread the celebrating out. Today's tip
was inspired by a very wise suggestion that I heard
from a blog reader a few years ago. She mentioned
that Mother's Day, which we celebrated in the US over
a recent weekend, could be complicated for her. She had
young kids, and what she craved was some relaxed time

(00:46):
spent on her own. But what Mother's Day often involved
was some sort of family activity, you know, like brunch
when you're still chasing a toddler around the restaurant, or
perhaps even extended family activities honoring family mentriarchs and so forth.
This could be a source of frustration and disappointment. But
instead she took a lesson from the post office. When

(01:09):
a federal holiday happens on a Sunday, sometimes the post
office will close on a day around that saying it
is for the holiday observed. So she chose to treat
a week day around Mother's Day as Mother's Day, observed,
she would put in for PTO and spend Monday doing
exactly what she wanted. For instance, someone could take herself

(01:31):
out to lunch with no one jumping up and down.
You could go get a massage. You can just relax.
I love this idea, and I think it's wise for
many celebrations. For instance, maybe you have certain things you'd
like to do for your birthday, but your family has
their own ideas. It's great that they want to celebrate you,

(01:52):
so you can do what they want on a day
near your birthday, or perhaps on your actual birthday, and
you can do what you want on another day you
get to do both. Or perhaps you need to celebrate
Thanksgiving with your extended family in a certain way. This
isn't your first choice of how you would celebrate, but

(02:13):
it has been going on for a long time, so
guess what. You can always have an additional party the
weekend before or after for friends and celebrate in a
different way. These things don't have to be at odds. Similarly,
if you are expected to do Christmas in a certain
way with your extended family or your partner's extended family,

(02:35):
you can decide that December twenty third is your immediate
family celebration and celebrate Christmas then in a way that
works best for you. You can think both rather than
getting frustrated that you don't get to celebrate how you
would prefer in life. I think it's generally better to
think and rather than but there is. It's nothing wrong

(03:01):
with a little extra celebrating or spreading festivities out over
a longer period of time. So celebrate as others want
and how you want. If you broaden the timeframe, often
there will be no real conflict between the two. In

(03:21):
the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's
to making the most of our time. Thanks for listening
to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.

(03:50):
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