Happy Day of Nothing!

The Day of Nothing.  It’s a holiday in my house.

It began several years ago when I decided to buy one of my daughters Season 1 of “Lost”.  Why?  Not sure… just an inspiration that hit me.  When I jumped on Amazon, I saw that they had a package deal for the first three seasons, so I hit the “Add to Cart” button.

I recall very well that particular Christmas morning, when she opened the package and made a face that suggested that she was as happy to have received it as she would have been to suck on a  lemon.  Oh well, I thought… can’t win them all.

Since we typically host Christmas Eve and rush around to multiple family members’ homes on Christmas itself, December 26 is often a day to relax, to clean the house, to just hang around.  Well, on the “Lost” Christmas, December 26 became something else altogether.  I remember it well, we were all sitting around in our PJs, tired and noticeably unambitious.  The time was probably about 9 AM.  What do you want to do?  I don’t know, what do you want to do?  I do not recall exactly who said it but someone did: “Why don’t we just throw on ‘Lost’?”

15 hours later, there we still sat.  Still in PJs.  Still watching.  And so was born the tradition.  The tradition of Day of Nothing.

Year after year, as an entire family, we spend the day together doing… nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  The second year of the tradition, we dived into later seasons of “Lost”.  Other years, we poured though my kids’ favorite childhood Disney films.  Each year it’s something different, but traditions are hard to break.

And as silly as it all sounds, we’ve all come to love it.  It’s wonderful family time with no expectations.  Anything goes, as long as we’re together and that we don’t plan dental visits, run errands, everyone takes the time off from work, and keeping pajamas on seems to also be a critical ingredient.

I’m sure this won’t last forever… it can’t.  But for now, Happy Day of Nothing!

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