The Real “Most Wonderful Time Of The Year”

An ode to The World Between Worlds

Back in late December 2012, December 28th to be exact, I went to go see one of my favorite bands live in concert. Psychedelic folk rock jam band My Morning Jacket was playing at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, NY, so I took the Metro North a few stops up to check out the show. In between songs, after a particularly excellent guitar solo (See example video embedded below), lead singer Jim James spoke to the crowd. I’m paraphrasing from memory here, but it went something like this.

“We’re in that week between Christmas and New Year’s, which is my absolute favorite time. The World Between Worlds. It’s a time of great change and transition. One world is ending, a new one is just beginning but yet to emerge.”

Jim is the lead singer of a jam band, with all of the crunchiness that entails, so please forgive him if you find that description a little too woo-woo. But his characterization of the lost week between December 25th and January 1st has stuck with me ever since I heard it nearly 12 years ago. It truly is a special time, and not just because nobody works or goes to school and instead sits around the house in sweatpants, taking naps and eating holiday leftovers. There’s a certain magical element to it, and I’ve come to look forward to that week more than Christmas itself.

And look, I do love Christmas. I’m not trying to be a Scrooge here. But let’s be honest, I think we can all agree that the Christmas season is not without its drawbacks. There’s the travel and the planning, the racking your brain trying to figure out the right gifts for all the members of your family, the wrapping and decorating and holiday cards that need to be sent out, and then the actual day of, where you spend the entire time in a confined space with upwards of 40 people, some of whom you only see at Christmas. There’s a reason that episode of The Bear where everyone screams at each other on Christmas Eve resonates so deeply with people.

Being able to experience this unique brand of stress is a gift in and of itself. It means you have family and loved ones to celebrate with, and the resources with which to celebrate. But there is undoubtedly a price you pay for that reward.

The World Between Worlds has none of that. Nothing is required of you, and no one expects anything. If you’re lucky enough to work a job that doesn’t ask you to come in or, like me, one that is outright closed during that week, you have nothing but free time on your hands. You can enjoy some well earned relaxation at the end of a long year.

However, I don’t believe outright laziness is the point of The World Between Worlds. Yes, it’s fun to lay around and do nothing, but laziness is really more of a means to an end. The point of all that free time, I believe, is to sit with yourself, think about where you’ve been this past year, and consider where you want to go in the next.

You know how during the week between Christmas and New Year’s, time doesn’t really exist? You easily forget the date or day of the week. I know there will be a few times where I stop and ask myself, “Wait, what day is it today again? Thursday? Or was that yesterday?” That’s because all of the typical set points that mark the progression of time in your normal life don’t exist. You don’t have class. You don’t have to wake up to an alarm and get ready for work. You don’t have your weekly recurring meetings. You don’t spend the day thinking about how close you are to the weekend. You just sort of exist, floating in a liminal space between two “normal” periods of time. Your only orientation towards reality is yourself and your own interior life. Anchoring around that is much more difficult than “On Thursdays they bring in bagels for the office.”

But when all of the things you typically have to do get stripped away for an extended period of time, you start to think about whether those are things that you actually want to do. You can step outside of your regular life and become a neutral third party observer. You look at events the way a friend would when you tell them a story about something that happened to you. With this shift comes a new perspective.

And, because you don’t have anywhere to go or anything to do during that week, you can think long and hard about what you want your life to look like in the new year. There’s plenty of time to sit and dream and imagine the best possible outcomes. From there, you can work backwards and reverse engineer the life you’re envisioning, starting with the smallest possible step you can take on January 1st. Resolutions are made on New Year’s Eve, but they’re crafted starting on December 26th.

That’s what I really love about The World Between Worlds. It’s all possibility and potential. You’re given free reign to imagine best case scenarios for the next year of your life. Will all, or even any, of those scenarios come to fruition? Probably not. Change is incredibly difficult. But maybe, just maybe, at the end of next year, you’ll look back and marvel at how far you’ve come over the last twelve months.

It reminds me of that last scene in The Matrix where Neo delivers his monologue to the machines over the phone. Neo vows to show the people plugged into The Matrix “A world without rules or controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.”

The choice is yours as well. Sure, you can spend the week between Christmas and New Year’s doing (and thinking about) nothing. But I feel like you’ll be missing out if you don’t attempt to harness some of the magic brought about by The World Between Worlds and work to manifest it in your own life.

Enjoy the week everyone. Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year.