To the Ones Still Working This Week

I used to be the one sprinting into the driveway five minutes before dinner, the scent of fryer oil clinging to me like regret, gifts unwrapped, still smelling, not surprisingly, like the weed that I probably shouldn’t have smoked on the way over.

I was never on time.
Never prepared.
Never able to explain to my family why I always looked equal parts exhausted and emotionally unavailable.

Holidays in hospitality will do that to you.
They have a way of chewing you up and spitting you out, usually when you’re racing across town to make an appearance.

A sad, quiet cameo in your own family’s story.

I can still feel the panic in my chest when I think about trying to get out of a kitchen in time to buy something… anything… for someone I loved. Half the time I forgot who I was shopping for. I just hoped I could piece some things together and not completely blow January’s rent in the process.

Nothing like the feeling of having to ask to borrow money from the very people you just gave awkward presents to.

That was me for a long time.
Years, really.
Long after it should’ve been.

I don’t work those shifts anymore. I stepped off the line many years ago by this point. I’m not actively behind a bar either. I’ve hung up my apron, at least in that way. My work these days lives in different hours, and in many ways, a different kind of weight.

But I remember it all.

The calloused hands.
The aching knees.
The cruel irony of serving holiday joy while privately drowning in dread.
The weed, the whiskey, the wobble.

So when I say this next part, I don’t mean it as someone looking down from some mountaintop.
I say it as someone who crawled out of a trench he stayed in too long:

You can make it through this holiday season. You don’t have to lose yourself to do it.

I know some of you are still grinding.
You’re the ones pulling doubles while people toast to “finally being off for the week.”
You’re the ones heating pre-shift soup in a plastic quart deli, with 200 covers ahead of you, and no plans for tomorrow.

And maybe, just maybe, you’re starting to wonder if you’ll ever get to enjoy the holidays like a “real person.”

Let me tell you something.

The first time I left a shift before the dining room emptied and got to my family’s house while the food was still warm, I cried.
I didn’t even have the words for it.
I just sat there, stunned, as if I’d found a cheat code no one told me about.

The path out isn’t clean or linear.
You don’t wake up one day and magically have boundaries and PTO.
I’m still not sure if I have either one of those things.
But you can start small, and you can start now.

Even if you’re still in it, still drowning in eggnog prep and freezer burns, and customers demanding hot cocoa refills- you are not stuck forever.

You’re learning.
You’re building.
You’re proving to yourself that you can survive the fire.
And one day, you might even step out of it for good; or at least learn how to control the burn.

When you do, don’t be surprised if you miss it.
Not the pain. Not the chaos.
The people.

Because if there’s one thing this industry gives you, even at its worst, is something real.
We’re not talking about the fake smiles or the forced cheer.
It’s the kind of camaraderie that only exists in the chaos.
The kind you earn in the quiet nods on the line, in the hand that helps you clean after close, in the eye contact that says “I got you” when you’re barely holding it together.

It’s not some fairy tale of workplace “family.”
It’s far grittier than that.
Much messier.
Way more honest.

It’s why, when you finally step out of the madness, part of you still misses it.

You won’t find that in a Hallmark movie.

So if you’re still in the trenches this year, I see you.
If your gifts are wrapped in bar napkins and you’ve been living on shift meal chicken tenders for the past six nights, I see you.

If you’re sitting in your car before walking into your people’s house- wondering if this year’s holiday will be different, let me offer you this:

It can be.
It will be.
Because you’re still here.
Still showing up.
Still finding joy in the cracks.
And still holding the line for a craft, a culture, and a calling that most people don’t understand, but the right ones always will.

You’ve got this.
Even if this year doesn’t feel like enough, it will be enough for someone.
Hopefully next year, it’ll be enough for you, too.

Merry almost.
I’ll see you on the other side.

For those still working when the lights are on for everyone else, the reflection lives here.

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