For Anyone Feeling Festive Adjacent

Posted on by Jami Fairleigh
Image description: a close-up of crumpled Christmas wrapping paper featuring penguin illustrations, with a blurred pile of holiday paper scraps behind it. Text over the image reads “For Anyone Feeling Festive Adjacent,” implying a humorous, low-energy post-holiday vibe.

Christmas happened around me this year like a party I could hear through the wall. Despite sipping zero holiday spirits, I’m hungover anyway, like the Ghost of Festivity Past spiked my eggnog while I looked away.

It’s funny — I didn’t mean to reject Christmas cheer. I just… didn’t pick up the glass.

Instead, I hovered nearby, festive adjacent, like someone who sits at the bar but only orders tap water.

You’d think that skipping the Christmas chaos would protect a person from the dreaded holiday hangover. I mean, there was no glitter. No baking marathons. No matching pajamas or cutesie holiday photo shoot. There was certainly no shame-eating of gingerbread men persons.

The logic doesn’t add up. See, I didn’t deck a single hall. There was no attempt to fake-it-til-I-made-it. I avoided Christmas movies, Hallmark® or otherwise.

Not once did I fa-la-la-la-la.

And yet here we are, December 26, and my brain feels like gift wrap that’s been folded too many times. I’m not burnt out from over-committing, but still functioning at energy level beige.

So instead of a resolution, reflection, or a “What I Learned This Year” post, here are a few unambitious intentions I’ll use to get past my holiday hangover:

  • Read something delicious even if it isn’t productive.

  • Eat leftovers straight from the container like a raccoon in pajama pants.

  • Allow my nervous system to unspool like tinsel meeting a vacuum hose (oddly satisfying!).

  • Binge videos of apartment-dwelling otters.

So that’s my plan. No fireworks. No hustle. Just a soft, neutral-toned December, where I can enjoy my soggy little corner of winter without forcing glitter into places where glitter does not belong.

Maybe next year I’ll pour myself a proper glass of holiday spirit. But also maybe not, and I’m low-key okay with that.

If you too are riding out a holiday hangover despite feeling festive-adjacent, I raise my metaphorical mug to you. Pull up a blanket. Hydrate. Read something. And finally, let yourself be until your soul reboots.

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