Always the Best Week of the Year

The Forrest Four-Cast: December 26, 2016

I love almost everything about December 25. I like holiday parties. I like holiday decorations. I enjoy getting presents. I enjoy giving presents. I like making Christmas cookies. I also like making donations to some of my favorite non-profit organizations.

But, even more than Christmas, I love the week between December 25 and January 1. Why? This is the week when the holiday spirit still largely prevails. However, contrary to the previous six weeks, almost all the intentional / unintentional tension of commercialized gift-giving is gone. Christmas carols that have begun to fray my nerves by December 20 always sound a lot better to me during this week. Likewise, festive lights always seem to burn a lot brighter for me during this week. To me, the Christmas tree looks a lot better after those wrapped distractions are gone.

These seven days celebrate relaxation over rush, slow-down over stress, not-hurried over nerves. I will spend my time eating food that isn’t too healthy, reading things that aren’t emails, watching meaningless college football bowl games and jumping on the backyard trampoline with Little Hugh. I won’t completely check out from my various SXSW responsibilities, but my attention to work-related matters is casual (at best).

The less casual approach begins January 2, when we begin the final two and a half month sprint to the March Magic that is SXSW 2017. But until next Monday arrives, I’m going to do my best to drink in all of the calm before the coming storm.

Hugh Forrest tries to write four paragraphs per day on Medium. These posts generally cover technology-related trends. When not attempting to wordsmith, he serves as Chief Programming Officer at SXSW in Austin.