This morning we’re in the middle of one of the biggest transitions of the homestead year. We’ve already dug out our special mugs; I’m setting up new playlists for my iPod; later today I’ll clear out the “on deck” CD rack on the piano, and replace it with a whole new set of CDs that spends most of the year on the hard-to-reach shelves up under the stairs. Yesterday was Thanksgiving, which means today begins our Christmas season.
We celebrate Christmas unashamedly from the day after Thanksgiving till Twelfth Night or Epiphany, January 6th. This, for us, is a good old-fashioned Time Out of Time, a period of the year set apart from all others. I have always fantasized about taking off work the entire season, to completely turn my back on the commercial/working world and its cares to wallow in the season.
Now that we live mostly subsistence, we can come close to doing that. I’m my own boss, what I say goes. So, I’m closing my business for Christmas.
You didn’t know I had a business to close, did you? I do.
Ever since we moved to the homestead, I’ve been a freelance Web designer, an Internet publisher, if you will. I suck at self promotion, and I hated the idea of moving to Haines, a small town with limited employment opportunities, and competing against the already-established resident Web designers. So, I’ve never promoted the business much. I get contracts now and then, but nothing to keep me too busy.
Then I got the crazy idea to publish my own book. In the process of doing that, I realized that my skill set is ideally suited to help other people do the same thing. So, combining the Web work with what is essentially pre-press publication services, I created my new business, Yeldagalga Publications, LLC (if you go here, you’ll see it’s largely under construction). It’s an ideal cottage industry. Working alone, at the dinner table (as I am at the moment) I can’t really afford too many clients at one time, so I don’t have to work hard to publicize it.
Nor do I need to scramble for clients. That’s why I can “close” for the Christmas season.
I’m not really closed, of course. I have a Web client at the moment, and they won’t see me slacking off in the coming weeks. And, if someone else comes to me with work, I doubt I’ll turn it down. Nevertheless, as The Boss, I finally have the satisfaction to say, to myself, at least: “Sorry, we’re closed for Christmas!”