Interscotia
The days between Christmas and New Year are not my favourites. Our festive plans rarely extend beyond Boxing Day. I have generally not shopped far enough ahead, so we are down to our last hunk of cheese and the appeal of leftover roast meats is waning. We sit and wait for for the dud firework that is New Year’s Eve. Anticipatory, but with none of the sparkle and festivity that comes with the pre-Christmas period.
The Norwegians call this interstitial week, Romjul. Jul means Christmas, and Rom seems to derive from rúmheilagr which means something like “not adhering to the rules of any particular holiday”. Norwegians, though, appear to have designated this a time to be cosy and reflect on the past year with family and friends. Crafting a name for something makes you consider the scope and purpose of it. In the UK, I think we have suffered without a name for this inbetweeny time. While many of us spend our days in similar ways to the Norwegians, eating leftovers, relaxing with family, without a stated raison d'être, it is a more hesitant, unsettling time for us.
A friend of my husband’s, the author Joe Craig*, has been quietly campaigning for the calendrical no-man’s-land to be called the “Interscotia”. “Inter” means “between” and a gentle Google suggests that “scotia” derives from the Ancient Greek term, skotía, meaning “dark, shadowy”. I like that the meaning suggests the solution - light and cosiness (per the Norwegians). I certainly prefer it over the twee “Twixtmas”. I will admit “Winterval” has a certain pagan-sounding charm, and it is quite neat as portmanteaus go. Have I missed any? “Chrimbo limbo”? Awful.
Revisiting the topic on Twitter this year, Joe pointed out that the darkness alluded to by the etymology of “Interscotia”, is not without ancient precedent. The Maya had a complex system of calendars. One cycle within the system was the Haabʼ made up of eighteen months of twenty days each, plus a period of five days at the end of the year known as Wayeb', or “the nameless days”. These five days were thought to be a dangerous time. The Maya believed that during these five days, the interface between the Underworld and the mortal realm was thin and evil spirits could move freely between the worlds causing disaster and bad luck. To avoid misfortune the Maya retreated. They did not travel, they made no plans and stayed indoors. Sounds familiar, although this year, the pernicious entity lurking in our neighbourhoods is rather more tangible.
Over the last few years, my aversion to the nameless days has been further tainted by Spike’s dread over the encroaching new year (there is a naff portmanteau for that, too: “janxiety”, January anxiety) which intensifies once the rituals of Christmas have been performed. I suspect the liminal, non-specific nature of the period exacerbates Spike’s bad feeling about the end of the year. Our routines are in tatters and we eat at odd times. We chug fatly towards New Year’s Eve. There is simply nothing to do except slide towards January 1st, particularly this year. And when the clock ticks over from 23:59 to 00:00, well, the year is over. Irretrievably in the past. Unobtainable. Given the year we’ve had, I doubt we’ll mourn it. But he will.
Spike has had low-level problems with things ending for a long time. As a toddler, I can remember having to check in with him as the end of a TV programme approached to remind him that it was ending soon. Without the reminder, the rude shock of the ending could cause him extreme upset. These days, he is increasingly good at finding his own solutions for endings. When we watch a movie, he insists on watching all the credits (good for catching those in-credit scenes which others might miss). I thought it was his completionist bent, but perhaps it is the buffer it creates. A gentle segue from the world of the movie back to the real world.
This year, Spike’s anxiety only really ramped up at the beginning of December. This is an improvement. Two years ago it kicked off at the beginning of September and became entwined in his mind with the permanent closure of an important feature on his Wii console and a change in ownership of a beloved bus route. I could see that he felt like his world was disintegrating. His solution was to write to Professor Brian Cox, requesting the invention of a time machine to undo his problems - stat. (Still waiting on your reply, Brian.) Despite being fairly miserable for three months, Spike was better able to communicate his distress and I began to understand that he was experiencing a kind of grief for the passing of the year, which helped us support him through social stories (which he reached for again this year) and, in the absence of a time machine, focussing him on more practical, helpful thoughts.
It probably doesn’t help that Spike’s sense of time is a little skew-whiff. Like Peter Pan, he doesn’t want to grow up. Given that most kids itch to be older, it would be easy to cast this reluctance as another example of atypicality, but like so many things that may fall within the autistic world view and seem odd, it is actually kind of sensible. Barring some terrible childhood experience, I imagine most grown ups would encourage their kids to linger in youth. Spike can’t explain why he doesn’t want to grow up, but looking at how he talks about time, I would hazard that it is because he cannot visualise the future. Of course, the future is unknowable, but most children constantly imagine themselves older - acting out the roles of their parents and other adults through play, planning their future careers, looking forward to more autonomy and independence, but Spike didn’t, doesn’t do that. Perhaps the future feels more uncertain for him. More dark.
Ironically, despite his (usually temporary) sadness at the passing years, Spike’s reach into the past is far better than mine. As much as I don’t want to labour autistic stereotypes, Spike has a very good autobiographical/episodic memory, retaining information about the days, dates and other information about certain events within his own lifetime - stuff that would trickle away from you or me. It is also clear that he has incredibly detailed visual recollection of some memories. He has described the act of remembering as being like watching a movie, but given the detail he can recall, I think it might be more akin to a live stream than the fuzzy jump cuts our brains cobble together. One morning, as I tried to encourage him out of bed, he asked to be left for a minute or two more “until the movie finishes”. “Which movie?”, I asked. “The one in my head”, he replied. Perhaps one day he can take some comfort from the fact that he is more readily able to conjure up the past.
In the meantime, we have been impressed that Spike has, without prompting, devised a plan to ease himself out of the Interscotia and into the new year. He has assembled a day-by-day schedule of videos to watch, each featuring a baddie getting his comeuppance, which I assume is reassuring viewing. He has created a structure for these nameless days, and it seems to be working for him. New Year’s Eve is looming and, in this one regard at least, things are looking good.
*I recommend his Jimmy Coates series for 8-12 year olds. The Bourne Identity for kids. Good premise, yes?
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