The Hollow Days

The Aztec solar calendar had eighteen months of twenty days each, plus five nemontemi--"hollow days" --at year's end. The nemontemi were nameless, unlucky days on which nothing of consequence was done or attempted. Rituals both ceremonial and quotidian were suspended. Fasting and abstinence were strongly encouraged. Children unlucky enough to be born in the hollow days were often killed outright: better that, it was thought, then let them live a life clearly cursed.

I've often thought of the week between Christmas and New Year's as the modern nemontemi. The luck or lack of it notwithstanding, there's no denying these are hollow, useless days. Many people take the week off work, to the point where offices are either shut or might as well be. And while the electronic stores are packed, in grocery, it's the slowest week of the year.

It's also far and away my favourite week. Especially in years like this one.

Boxing Day, you see, fell on a Sunday this year. Which means I am not only getting paid for a day off, I also get a day off in lieu. The upshot this year is two consecutive weekends off, one of which is three days long. AND I still get my customary Wednesday off! I like my job, but let's face it, not working beats working any day of the week.

This is the week in which we wrap the old year in a big ball, pausing every now and again to examine some aspect, troubling or triumphant...and then we drop the ball off a tall building in New York City. The new year springs forth from the dying cocoon of the old, bringing with it new possibilities and perils.

Until that moment, everything seems to be in stasis. This is an introspective week, a week for deep thoughts. Anticipation gathers, foglike, in the air, only hardening into conviction come January.

2010 has been beyond a doubt the most eventful and just plain great year of my life so far. Over the next four days I'll kick the year-ball around and examine its spots. In the meantime, happy hollow-days.