Holiday hijacking
Today is Labor Day in the United States, a sort of “goodbye to summer” weekend while we remember the “working man”.
Relax, it’s just a saying. More of a “mankind” thing than “man”. If you have a problem with “mankind”, then I can’t help you.
Anyway, it’s traditionally filled with parties, cookouts, etc. “Active” relaxing, if you will. The tradition of it all is actually kind of pressure inducing.
Not wanting to be seen as a party pooper, you slog to the store, and, get something to cook on the grill in order to create lazy holiday weekend memories for the kids. But, when you have young kids, they’re not always into relaxing on the porch, or, just hanging out.
When you work outside the home, you’re also torn between doing holiday things, and, the ever present need to “get things done” like on any other day off from work.
Today, I had big plans to do laundry, clean the house, etc. since we did the cookout thing on Saturday. I had also planned to just hang out, and, do a few things that I wanted to do, but, didn’t have to be done.
Alas, it didn’t happen. My daughter’s lack of planning pretty much hijacked my entire day (long story)
I realize I often write about days off gone wrong, but, ever the optimist, I keep hoping.
Still believing I “deserve” some time off as part of the working masses, I putzed around the house, but, now it’s put the dreaded back to work/school routine behind, and, we’re just now eating dinner when everyone should be off to bed.
Sigh.
There’s always Fall Break, I guess.
Tags: Career and Kids, cookout, holiday, Labor-Day
1 opinion for Holiday hijacking
Loth
Sep 4, 2007 at 8:08 am
We don’t have Labour Day here in Scotland (given we are governed by the Labour Party that would be a tad politically sensitive!) but we do have bank holidays and the same thing happens to me with those. You end up sort of frittering them away and then being cross because you feel you have wasted precious work-free time. But you know what makes up for those? I sometimes get public holidays WHEN THE KIDS ARE IN SCHOOL! Sometimes my husband is even off too. And then we drop the kids off with a wave and a smile and go and eat our own body weight in fried breakfast before going for a leisurely walk JUST BECAUSE WE CAN. Sigh. (Off to check calendar for next bank holiday…..)
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