Shutting Down for the Holidays
There are two times a year when everyone can be certain that nothing will get done. One is the dog days of August. When I lived in Italy fifty years ago (did I just say fifty? Wow!), if you took ill or had a toothache in the middle of August, you might just as well fly back to New York for treatment. I recall that the only emergency room open in Rome was at Ospedale Fatebenefratellion on a small island in the middle of the Tiber River. That ranks up there in the annals of Italian ridiculousness with shutting the aqueducts for repairs and closing down whole sections of the city from receiving fresh water for a week at a time (paging Mr. Cholera). During Ferragosto (August 15th to be exact) there is nothing in Italy, including the museums during the height of the tourist season, that stays open. In those days, everyone was at the beach. And being the gregarious culture that Italians are, they all want to sit on the crowded beaches very close to one another, leaving the remote beaches for the rest of us who prefer a little elbow room. I shouldn’t pick on the Italians too much, all of Europe is at the beach in August and all the wealthy Middle Easterners are joining them.
When I started in banking in 1976, Vice Presidents got six weeks of vacation per year and were expected to choose either July or August (for the entire month) to be out at the Hamptons, on Fire Island, or up in the Catskills. The wasps went to Maine to summer on Mount Desert Island near Bar Harbor. Even now, when bankers plan out road shows or new equity or bond issues, they always account for the August Effect and try very hard to plan around this built-in slow period.
The next work stoppage after Labor Day is not always on the way to Grandma’s house. If you work in New York you quickly learn that the Jewish high holy days of Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (the day of atonement), which are quickly followed by Sukkot. This all means that there are several weeks when any business effort with observant Jews (which often happens in the arena of finance) are slowed to a crawl.
As we literally speed past Columbus Day and Veterans Day, there is an ever-so-slight pause for Halloween. There are even some famous Wall Street stories about bankers trying to take time off around these minor holidays only to find themselves looking like fools that missed important market turns (1979 around the Paul Volker Saturday Night Massacre being the most famous). By the time November rolls around, the holiday decorations start showing up in the lobbies and the tourist levels start to rise noticeably. While the Christmas trees wait until after Thanksgiving, the ice-skating rinks are gearing up and furs get redeemed from the cleaners and are carefully worn in hopes that no PETA red-paint-toting animal activists are in range.
I always think of the holiday season as starting during Thanksgiving week. Sometimes people get some work done that week, but with travel jamming up starting Tuesday and running through Sunday, I think its fair to suggest that very little heavy-duty work happens that week. The over-the-river-and-through-the-woods program makes that week the biggest travel week of the year. It’s one of my favorite times to stay put and just watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV (my family prefers to see the balloons first-hand, but I figure you’ve seen one balloon you’ve seen them all). I also like to get a jump on my holiday chores. I buy fewer and fewer gifts since Kim enjoys that job too much. But that still leaves holiday cards and the all-important holiday movie roster.
I send about 150 holiday cards and I am never tough enough in my triage of names from the list who probably get negative value from reminders of our acquaintance. Kim now does the card design (I get right of approval) and we have the envelopes printed from an Excel file I give her. That leaves a short salutation (the body of the card gives a summary annual family update), remembering or not spouse and kids’ names, licking and stamping. I do that 150 times and it all feels cathartic. I’m not sure why we do it other than to remind one another that we are still here, and we think of them at least once a year. This year we are killing two birds with one stone by making our holiday card also a moving address card. I find that is totally appropriate as efficiency should count for something in today’s busy world. I don’t think anyone minds the double duty.
As for the holiday movie roster, we have agreed on our standards. The season should start with Miracle on 34th Street. It can be the colorized one, but it must still have Natalie Wood and Edwin Gwenn. We have recently added Love Actually and Elf to our roster even though they are less traditional (but lots of fun). As we head closer to Christmas, we make sure to see It’s a Wonderful Life and White Christmas (NOT Holiday Inn, which is often confused for the other Bing-a-ling…substituting Fred for Danny). Some like to add A Christmas Story, but I’ve never been a big fan of Ralphie’s. Between other runner’s up like Trains, Planes and Automobiles, Christmas Vacation, Home Alone and Four Christmases, there are plenty of other fun films to fill-in during slow holiday afternoons.
I recently saw a bit of When Harry Met Sally and I never understand the Billy Chrystal and Meg Ryan conversation about how much they dread the holidays. I hear that suicides go up, presumably due to feelings of loneliness. But I have never felt anything but good feelings during the holidays. I do not “treasure” Christmas the way others like my first wife and her gang do, but I genuinely enjoy the season. I feel that anything that makes us pause and thank the forces that be for all the good things we are fortunate enough to have, must be a good thing. The holidays do that for me and should do that for everyone. We should all plan to shut-down a little during this time of year and reflect on our worlds and our blessings.