Last week someone on the bus asked me if I’m “looking forward to Black Friday”.
That was a little weird.
Not compared to things that happen on the bus. Much weirder things happen on the bus, both to me and in general.
In the land of Havi, though, the question seemed bizarre. Just the concept of someone — anyone — theoretically looking forward to Black Friday is something I can’t really wrap my brain around. Yes, people vary.
I am not in fact looking forward to Black Friday. But what if that changed? What if I could?
I mean, since I’ll be hiding under blankets, I guess I could look forward to that for starters. So, why can’t blanket-hiding became my holiday?
Blanket-hiding.
That is what I do on Black Friday.
Hide. Under. Blankets.
Blanket-hiding is basically what that day is for, as far as I’m concerned. In fact, it’s kind of odd that this is not already a thing, that they don’t just call it Blanket Friday.
There’s probably a perfect German word for it already. Like Unterdendeckenversteckungstag.
Or, possibly, Tag der Ab Ins Bett Einheit.
I made those up, but they feel right.*
I suggested these on Twitter, and then Jessica volunteered Bloßnichtausdembettkrabbeltag (Justnotevencrawlingoutofbed day!), which is even better.
The Holy Days of Havi Bell.
I keep a notebook called the Holy Days of Havi Bell Who Is A Bell.
It’s where I keep notes about holidays and rituals, so my relationship with these days can be more conscious and more playful. So I can be a bell. And so I can find ways to not be in my stuff about holidays. Because I have big stuff about holidays.
Some of the Holy Days of Havi Bell are Jewish holidays that I do my way. Like Purim, the holiday of costumes, and also the holiday of surprising your friends with delicious baked goods. Or Sukkot, which is practically a festival of blanket forts.
Some are broader-culture holidays that I actively play with, or sometimes subvert.
Groundhog Day, which is the holiday of do-overs.
It is also a day for getting to do everything twice. Two times breakfast! Two times bath!
Or Hermitsgiving, where I run away and avoid American Thanksgiving.
Or Operation V.A.L.E.N.T.I.N., a day to practice being completely and utterly dedicated to sensual pleasure and vital aliveness, combined with zero contact with the extremely irritating (and excessively pink) outside world.
Basically all my holidays are about avoiding. Also connecting.
Avoiding: static, noise, external rules, social media, other people’s expectations and projections.
Connecting to: myself, quiet, peacefulness, presence, desire. What I need and want. Taking exquisite care of myself.
Avoidance in the sense of turning inward and getting quiet, and also in the sense of oh good god make all that noise just stop.
Connection with the things I want to connect to. With the qualities of the voyage.
Blanket Friday is exactly what I need.
Here’s what I don’t want to see, experience or even hear about on the day-after-Thanksgiving:
Pushing. Pressure. Lines. Stress. Anxiety. Commercialism. The collective forgetting, on a grand scale, of everything said the day before about appreciation, thankfulness, kindness, grace.
I know this world of Black Friday exists, and I don’t want to know anything more about it than that.
I want my world of Blanket Friday: cozy, grounded, safe, sheltered, full of sweetness and possibility.
I will be at Rally (Rally!), so this will be somewhat easier because the Playground is absolutely full of blankets, and it is a world unto itself, separate from everything happening outside.
But even if I weren’t, I’d be following the same basic plan:
Stay indoors. With the exception of a walk to the park, maybe swinging on the swings if it isn’t too cold.
Stay offline. Other than to play here with the Friday Chicken.
Naps. Multiple naps.
Skip some stones. Play with some spirals. Color in a monster.
Drink tea. Be with people I like.
I don’t really know what else is part of Blanket Friday. I guess I’ll find out this Friday.
We are writing the history of Blanket Friday. Rituals will evolve. There will probably be cheese.
That’s probably enough.
Because really, what more needs to be said about a holiday, other than “there will probably be cheese”.
And since the first Blanket Friday hasn’t happened yet, I can’t know what it is like, how I will feel or what I will need.
Like all grand experiments, parts of it will probably be not-so-great, and then I’ll have more information for next year, for the book of the Holy Days of Havi Bell.
There will be good things too. Like comfort and sweetness. Appreciation and a thank-you-heart.
I will whisper a thank you to the person on the bus with the unlikeliest question. And a thank you to past me who filled an entire playground with blankets.
As if she knew that one day I would need a whole day for this.
Join me if you like.
If you would like to celebrate Blanket Friday with me in any form at all, or to adopt an aspect of it, you are invited to. Or invent your own holiday, your own form. We get to play however we like.
If you’re like me and run away from American Thanksgiving, then a peaceful ease-filled Hermitsgiving to us this Thursday.
If you celebrate American Thanksgiving, then I am wishing you a safe and pleasant one. If you’re Canadian, a retroactive happy Thanksgiving and a happy perfectly normal Thursday. If you don’t celebrate, then may it be a beautiful day. And a comforting Blanket Friday to all!
And if another wish is in order, here is a wish for the thing you need and desire in the best form for you to receive it.
Thursday night is also the first night of Hannukah, so chag urim sameach.
Things that are welcome here: Excitement about Blanket Friday, as an idea and my new experiment! Well-wishes of all forms. Blankets. And cheese.
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This Friday, I am joining my friend Beverly Army (great name, huh?) and dedicating the day to crafting. Stayin’ at home and making things with my own two hands. Taking back that idea of having to spend ALL THE MONEY! and using that time to create stuff with care and love.
I think I might make myself some coasters for the house or try my hand at a lap quilt. Perhaps I’ll finally finish my cozy tofu socks.
“Blanket Friday” is perfect! I am going to start celebrating that. A very happy & peaceful one to you, Havi.
I love that it’s a history of something that is just beginning. Of course there is an actual history leading to this point, but still. It’s perfect!
I will be spending Friday in a metaphorical blanket, as I imagine my boss would look at me funny if I tried to hide under a blanket at work. (Silly boss.) It will be quiet and I’m going to eat my favorite things and write and listen to music and probably have wine in the evening. And yoga, because yoga is its own blanket fort.
In my dimension, it is called The Day After Thanksgiving aka Digestion Day because everyone who works that day spends it asking each other, “What did you do for Thanksgiving?” and recounting What and How Much they Ate (and what they are planning to do with the leftovers.)
Since hardly any work gets done, enlightened employers outside of Retail give everyone that day off.
I spend it playing with making Christmas cards. Also, I have challenged The Dude to the Thanksgiving Iron Dragon (computer game) Tournament of Champions.
Warmth and Joy for all your rituals.
It seems very appropriate that I’m reading this post from *inside* a blanket fort of epic proportions. Possibly this link will work?
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=763211127037&set=a.626376918887.2085324.41600894&type=1&theater¬if_t=like
If not, it’s made up of a 9′ patio umbrella, a couch, a space heater, and several blankets.
I don’t see why we would take it down in the next 72 hours, so Blanket Friday Solidarity!
The link worked. So clever. I’m tempted to make one myself.
My day-after-Thanksgiving will be distinguished by first, an early-morning run to the supermarket so that I do not have to go again until December 7; second, a whole day with only what I Want To Do on the schedule; third, spectating and getting inspired at a DanceSport competition.
Here’s to peace. 🙂
Blanket Friday sounds good to me. I won’t get into all the reasons Black Friday is getting on my nerves, but it really is, even more than usual this year. Coziness and quiet and warm blankets will be very welcome. Yay!
Yes, there will be cozy flannel blankets in my Friday and maybe cheese. And because word play is fun: blank-ette. Rhymes with banquet but it’s just a small version of calm, quiet, light-oatmeal-colored empty-space-ness, a blank space to be filled in either intentionally (with gusto, like a test I know I an ace) or like a Mad Lib. (Surely that is short for mad liberation?)
This is the year that I mourn a little for the social rituals I don’t have because of the amazing new adventure we embarked on this month. Giving up a little, getting a lot. Theme–bam!
Blanket Friday is a much-needed Day of Observance. I like it even better than National Buy-Nothing Day, which is also the day after Thanksgiving. We’ve got massages scheduled for that day, and a museum trip planned for Saturday. The museum shop may undermine my intention to buy nothing.
I’m planning to avoid Cyber Monday as well as Black Friday. I have stockpiled reference material for several projects so I won’t have to go online at all that day.
Wishing everyone the happiest of days tomorrow and Friday.
Buy-Nothing-Blanket-Fort-Friday sounds like exactly the kind of thing I need right now. Warm, silent, and safe. Possibly with hot cider and a good book.
Warm wishes to everyone for all the holidays you are celebrating this week!
I’ve never been delighted with the stress and hurry that accompanies Tgiving is my family. However, I have plans to help mitigate that. the whole idea of Black friday and that we call it that and it’s a THING, annoys me like a pebble in my shoe. and I have a bunch of strategies to mitigate what I experience as soul-killing wretchedness.
i dont buy anything, if i can help it, not even groceries. I plan to do all kinds of art things and rest and go to the park if the weather is nice. Yoga and cross training, and maybe seeing friends in the evening. Otherwise i want to hide from the overculture and their “door buster” hysteria.