Holidays and a much needed pause button

Month's like this are the reason we put so little stock in the Holidays.  There is enough going on already.

Working in a dead tree for the living room, decorations, lights on the house, a consumption orgy at cramped malls and grand expectations for a couple arbitrarily chosen days -- just wouldn't help matters.  The glorification of a self-declared idyllic day just isn't going to help.

What we need is a pause button.   A week or even a month.   Reset, catch-up and then restart.  

Instead, everything keeps moving.    There is no pause button to life.