A modest proposal

Who decided that Christmas and New Year's should come so close together?

In the past I never noticed that this was a problem. As an academic, I had a month off from classes at this time of year to hunker down at home and do my own work without being bothered. As a zookeeper I had no holidays off at all.

But now it's a huge inconvenience. Sure, I can write on whatever days I want. But as a nonfiction writer, I need to be able to get in touch with other people to do my work, and they're not answering their email or phones on those days. And as a freelancer it's still a lot like being a zookeeper: I have no time off - I have to meet all the same deadlines I would have otherwise. So the only thing these "holidays" accomplish is that I have to somehow pack two weeks of work into eight weekdays instead of ten.

I am sure the same is true in many other professions. What's more, I think we can all agree that we don't need another day off next week nearly as much as we need it at other times. There are entire months when Americans have no holidays.

I propose that we move New Years Day. How about March, when it's so depressing that we need a holiday? Or June, when the weather is nice and we could make better use of a day off?