All I Want for Christmas is…Some Sleep

The holiday season means a lot of things. It means family coming together, celebrations with friends, secret Santa parties at work. It means cooking dishes passed down through the generations, experimenting with new recipes seen online, cookie-storms of baking and sugar-coma inducing candy making sessions.

It means serious bouts of house cleaning and the decking of our halls and trimming of our trees with all things red, green, gold, silver and glitter. And let’s not forget the careful placement of animated reindeer, elves, Disney and Simpsons characters on our front lawns and the untangling and stringing of miles and miles – well, yards anyway – of twinkle lights.

There’s list-making, visits to Santa, shopping, wrapping, and mailing. And there are the inevitable moments in between all these things when we wonder how much it’s all costing us, and how long it will take us to pay it off once it’s over.

Fun? Definitely. Stressful? Likely. Exhausting? Oh yeah.

Santa’s not the only one who needs a vacation starting December 26th. There’s no getting around it – the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas is crammed with activity, and it can seem like there’s no way there will ever be enough time to get it all done.

So, what gives? Sleep, of course. It’s one of the few things we spend our precious hours on each day that we can cut back on or shift around. We know how important getting enough good sleep is to our health and effective functioning, but let’s face it – when we’re running out of time, what do we do? Stay up late or get up early to get it done.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could receive sleep as a present? We could request it when people ask, “What do you want for Christmas?” or leave hints around the house, hoping our loved ones would get some for us. We could gift it to our friends and family. It would make shopping a breeze, and we’d never have to struggle to figure out what to get for that tough-to-buy-for person on our list.

I guess what makes sleep so rare and valuable is that it can’t be captured in a bottle or wrapped up in a box. Not even Santa Claus, with all his magic, can leave it under the Christmas tree for us.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Sleep Satisfaction!