Confusion. Haze. Doubt.

That’s how I felt over the past two weeks when anyone asked me what day it was.

To be fair, things always get a little foggy during the two-week holiday season. People take off work, kids are out of school, and we celebrate major holidays. Routines and calendars take a backseat as we enjoy the season. It is a recipe for completely losing track of the day of the week.

During the weeks of Christmas and New Year’s Day, I need to keep a calendar close by to know what day of the week it is.

Perhaps I am just getting old and absentminded, but this holiday season seemed to reach new levels with day of the week confusion. Adding to my advanced age might be a couple other factors as well.

First, Christmas and New Year’s Day, which always fall on the same day of the week, landed on Wednesday in 2024. When these holidays land on a Friday, Monday, or actual weekend day, they can become absorbed into a general holiday weekend. However, because Christmas and New Year’s Day were on Wednesday, it simulated an additional weekend itself. Thus, Tuesday felt like a Friday and Wednesday felt like a Saturday. Logically, that meant Thursday felt like a Monday (and so on).

Second, working a portion of the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day also didn’t do me any favors. I usually take that week off, but since Sid and the kids were in South Carolina and because I am still a new EWU employee, I worked Dec. 30, Dec. 31, Jan. 2, and Jan. 3. With the Wednesday mid-week holiday, which was preceded by another Wednesday holiday, everything was thrown off.

Can you imagine how hard it was to keep track of garbage day? Our service got bumped from Thursday to Friday for both holiday weeks. Just that is confusing. But add in all the haziness about what day it actually was in the first place and you can understand the conundrum.

But maybe this is by design. During the holiday season the argument could be made that we shouldn’t worry about what day of the week it is. As I alluded to above, there is something about the embracement of a special time of the year where we aren’t confined to whether it is a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc.

So, as long as I can keep tabs on when the garbage truck is coming by, I won’t worry about the calendar as much next year. Don’t Blink.