A Long Winter's Nap...

The phrase long winter's nap is, of course, direct from Clement Moore's marvelous poem A Visit from Saint Nicholas, which we all know as Twas The Night Before Christmas.

Or at least we've long thought that Moore wrote the poem.

The cutesy-Christmasy version is that Moore sat down and scribbled it out for his kids as some sort of present. Maybe Moore was a tightwad and thought he could put the poem 'neath the tree and all would be well. Maybe his portfolio was in rough shape and there was no extra cash for presents. Maybe he didn't write it.

There are those who now say he never did any such thing, but rather claimed authorship of the poem after the fact.

Is nothing sacred?

The answer is a resounding no. No, nothing is sacred. And that may be all well and good. Kings of antiquity(and not such antiquity) believed they were sacred and just consider the messes some of them caused, not to mention those they sent to eternity in the name of them being sacred.

Whatever the case, I still love the poem. More importantly, I still love the idea of a long winter's nap. I could take one in July. Set the AC to where ice crystals form along the windowpanes, jump into flannel jammies, then nod off for a good ten hours sleep.

This time of year getting into bed is sheer joy, while getting out of bed is sheer agony.

This is not my gripe alone. Today I spoke with several people who were in complete agreement.

The very next comment, and this also today happened several times, was about being in a slump, or feeling uninspired, or unmotivated, or just being in a funk of unknown origin.

Each year, and there is no science involved here, I seem to come across this sentiment right around this time, and from an awful lot of people. Age, not a factor. Gender, not a factor. Socio-economic status, also not a factor.

It is what is.

What I happen to think it is, while it may sound foolish, is an innate, fundamental, long-ignored natural inclination to hibernate. I suspected this for years, maybe decades.

Then there was a book on the subject.

"A book, The Hibernation Response, reminds us that the seasonal disorder affects at least twenty-five percent of the earth's population, especially those living in northern climes where light and sunshine are diminished throughout the winter. The consequence, the authors contend, is winter depression and many attendant discomforts."

Fitting very well with that, is this from an article about the book:

"The subject is hibernation. Bears hibernate, so do millions of other creatures, including thousands of different insect species. It is nature's method of preparing inhabitants of cold areas for the winter months. By settling into a state of inactivity, energy is preserved and body fat utilized slowly.

Since humans are part of nature, why have we been excluded? Or have we missed the cues while becoming adjusted to a society that turns night into day? Are we fighting a losing battle because the "unnatural response" has brought us chronic fatigue, respiratory diseases, and frequent loss of interest in work and play?"

Then just last night, there I sat, watching an episode of Good Eats with Alton Brown, who's getting weirder and weirder with each passing season. (Alton, though I am a fan, has gotten away from what he does best. My opinion only.) So, there I sit, dog in lap, cat at feet, newspaper in hand, cold beer (Victory's Prima Pils)nearby, when the thought struck.

Is this what Christmas is all about? Really, truly, could all of this be what drives what we collectively call The Holidays?

I say, by golly, it just might be.

In our never ending attempt to circumvent, to defy, and more importantly, to deny nature, we came up with this lengthy festival which would rival the Greeks and Romans, this extravaganza that now stretches unending from at the latest Thanksgiving week to New Year's Week. Our society at present did not invent Christmas, yet it reshaped and remade the holiday, stretching it far beyond its intended limits for our very own selfish reason; we don't want to hibernate.

We so desperately wanted something to excite and incite us to corporal pleasures that we figured, "Hey, you know Christmas? Why don't we do all kinds of silly and distracting things on a daily basis so it won't end until we totally run out of excuses to keep it going?"

Look, lest anyone think me Scroogey for all of this, then please look no further than Scrooge, look to Dickens for a complete and honest treatment of what Christmas was like a short 150 years ago. In total it was, A) One day off from work, B) A respectable meal with family, C) A time for worship for those so inclined. That was it.

Don't want to visit Dickens? Fine, I can go back to my own mother and father, both of whom recounted what Christmas was like when they were kids in the late 1920s and early 1930s. It bore no resemblance to what we now see.

Here's what I figure...

Before electricity and the light bulb, there was a lot of dark a lot of days. Candles in abundance lit the way for many, but on average, the American family went to bed very early and arose rather late.

Early bed times helped keep you warm, since central heating didn't exist, nor did central plumbing, meaning indoor plumbing. Outhouse versus chamber pot? You tell me on a seventeen degree below zero night. On that very same night, outhouse versus a pants pocket and the winner would be the same.

Edison finds a way to light lives with electricity, so when the sun goes down, Americans don't have to slide into bed with it. Lighting the darkness means more time of day when you can see that hand in front of you. Americans don't sleep as much, or at least as long, and the denial of hibernation has begun.

Standing around staring at chickens, sheep, and cows doesn't move most who now have that electric light thing going. They need something to do. Their body says go to bed and sleep like a bear, but the temptation to do something, anything, with all that light is too strong. What to do?

What we did was create the make-work project we now know collectively as The Holidays, which gives us plenty to do most each and every day until the new year comes. From the new year forward, until the sun shines later and later, we needed something else again.

That's why we have the NFL and Superbowl Sunday.