When last I wrote for this space it was me using the occasion of my 66th birthday to give unsolicited testimony on the benefits of saving money and buying one’s freedom.
All these many days later, my birthday celebrations have only just ended roughly 24 hours ago. Our family suffers from the affliction we shall call celebration inflation.
I first noticed this on a wide scale among others when Thanksgiving, formerly a Thursday off annually for working folk, swelled into an entire week away from work.
The reward of that expanded Thanksgiving is not as great in these COVID times, when so many have either opted to stop working entirely and exist on government handouts, or have milked the working-from-home angle until the cow screamed in agony, either of which makes most days a holiday.
But, there was a time when people were expected to show up at work on a daily basis, get a few weeks of vacation a year and, if they were lucky, several paid holidays.
Interestingly, I worked 20 years at the local newspaper, where Thanksgiving was a holiday only for the day shift. The night people, those who actually put out a morning newspaper, worked Thanksgiving and were compensated with an extra day they could take whenever – called a floating holiday.
Memories of those days make me laugh when I hear disgruntled employees at the long-term care facility where my mother resides griping in the hallway, using what elementary school teachers used to label one’s outside calling voice, to lament perhaps having to work nights or weekends instead of steady daylight due to staffing shortages.
It was with envy that I, a guy who worked for an employer that saw Thanksgiving as just another work day – for the night crew – back in the day, saw others swelling Thanksgiving into a week off work.
The math went something like this: Being off Thanksgiving was a given (pun intended). But you had to have the day off before the holiday to travel. And, since you’re already off Wednesday and Thursday, adding Friday as an off day gets you to the weekend. Said weekend is two more days off because no one works weekends!
But wait, there’s more. It’s ridiculous to expect workers back on the job Monday, without a travel day to get back from wherever they had spent the previous five days. Plus, Tuesday should be yet another off day to give a person a chance to recover from the travel day and gear up for the dreaded return to work.
Add ’em up. Thanksgiving expanded into a seven-day stretch of off days, unless you work in a sweatshop. Or a newspaper. Or hospital. Or store. Or long-term car facility. Are a policeman, or fireman, or taxi driver, or waiter. Etc. Etc. Etc.
Returning to the matter of birthdays in our family: None of us has, or had, jobs that allowed us to stretch Thanksgiving break to the breaking (I did it again) point.
Birthdays are our Thanksgiving-like exercise in expansion. We still worked, or those of us who currently work, without taking a week off to mark birthdays. But even so, sometimes the parties span multiple days.
Formerly, a child-custody demand meant we treated birthday parties like Noah’s animals – we needed two of each. Even with that element gone, we still tend to have multiple birthday celebrations per person.
Sometimes it’s just the kids and the celebrant. Sometimes it’s the celebrant, kids and other adults. Sometimes it’s just the celebrant and significant other. Sometimes it’s a big party — themed productions with lots of kids and adults milling around a rented facility
Regardless of the details, any members of this family having just one birthday celebration would tend to feel slighted, just like those people who don’t get a week off around Thanksgiving or, horrors, have to work the actual holiday.
But now my week of basking in birthday adoration is over and I can get back to my routine.
Wait. Oh, that’s right, granddaughter number 2 is about to begin her birthday celebration week.
Let the revelry begin.
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