This is what I have been waiting for, the thing that makes retirement so meaningful to me: the holidays! Anyone who has retired from retail or the service industry in general knows what I am feeling.
When I graduated from college, my first job as as a restaurant manager trainee for Denny’s, and my training period, far enough from home so they put me up in a hotel, was during the Christmas holidays. In those days, over 40 years ago, Denny’s never closed!** It was depressing, my first Christmas away from home. From that day on, I spent a lot of holidays – Easter, 4th of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s – working. If I didn’t have to work on the day of, I often had worked late the night before and/or had to get up at some ungodly hour the day after. It never got better, only worse, especially when stores started being open on the holidays themselves, especially Thanksgiving!
The thing that made this even worse, was family who did not understand. I am the only member of my family who has ever had to work this much during the holidays. Many of my family members are teachers or professors – enough said. Others are self-employed or in jobs where they took all or most of the long weekends and the weeks around Christmas off. I can’t count how many times I heard, “Can’t you ask for the day off?” or “Why can’t you be there?” My family never understood how much those questions hurt, because they were so ignorant of what working in retail was about.
All that is over now! It is impossible to explain to those who have not experience it how relieving and relaxing it is to sit down for Thanksgiving dinner knowing you don’t have to go to work in 5 hours; to be able to stay after dinner and enjoy the family; to feel part of everything in stead of being the “odd man out”.
This is the first year in many that I have been able to put up all of my Christmas decorations, inside and out, by the day after Thanksgiving. Most of it was done before Thanksgiving. All I had to do on the day after was replace my front porch Thanksgiving wreaths, decorations and garden flags with my Christmas wreaths, decorations and garden flags, and turn on the lights! In the past this has always been a burden; this year it was fun!
So now I get to relax and enjoy it all, grateful that my first “free” holiday season is a long one, which Thanksgiving coming relatively early this year. I can’t wait for Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day!
If you still are stuck in retail hell, I was thinking of you on Thanksgiving as I had my third piece of pie, and praying that you will soon get your parole!
Dave
(**When they built a new restaurant, Denny’s threw away the keys to the front door. About 10 years later, when they started closing on Christmas day, many Denny’s had to call a locksmith in to make keys for the front doors.)