 The Most Wonderful Night Of the Year! Posted by Caren Crane Nov 4 2012, 12:21 am By the time you read this, the most wonderful night of the year will be well underway or will have ended. My very favorite night, the one I wait for all year long, is not my birthday, wedding anniversary or Christmas Eve. No dear Banditas and Buddies, I anxiously await the night we go OFF Daylight Savings Time and I get to enjoy one magnificent extra hour of sleep.
Conversely, my least favorite night of the year is the one where we “spring forward” and begin observing Daylight Savings Time once more. Although I love my long, lingering summer evenings as much as the next person, it cuts into my precious sleep time. And as you all know by now, I do love a long, deep, satisfying slumber. All that daylight threatens my beauty sleep, which I count on and obviously need. I must say, though, it’s easier to stay up and write during spring and summer evenings than it is in fall and winter. Much as I love my sleep, I need more butt-in-chair time. All this blessed darkness is a double-edged sword!
So, are you a deep sleeper or a restless midnight rambler? Do they observe Daylight Savings Time where you live? What is your personal favorite night of the year and why? Let us all know your nocturnal habits!
(hibernating bear sign ©2010 butyoudontlooksick.com) TweetPosted in Caren Crane, Daylight Savings Time, good sleeper, hibernating, hibernation, long winter's night, sleeping, turning back the clock Comments46 thoughts on “The Most Wonderful Night Of the Year!” |
  
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Hi, Caren! I’m mostly a deep sleeper–I have had brief patches, usually in conjunction with pregnancy or small children, when I’ve either suffered interrupted sleep or a bit of insomnia, but those are currently a distant memory
They DO observe DST here, and I would be happy for them to stop 
I am not fond of the disruptions to sleep on either end, quite honestly, and don’t see the need for the change. I’m not sure I have one favorite night of the year… any with lots of sleep is sure to be high on the list 
Fedora, high five, my sister sleeper! I tell you, having babies and young children was the most challenging time of life for me so far. Interrupted sleep most ever night – ack!
I’m with you on wanting to do away with DST. I swear, if they could just eliminate that whole changing the time business – which small children and animals do NOT understand! – it would be wonderful. I suppose it helps someone, somewhere.
All I know is, the “fall back” portion always causes accidents here, because the sun is lower in the afternoon and people tend not to be able to see, say, school crossing guards in the road. Ugly stuff!
Oh, and watch out for the chook. I’m sure he was up EXTRA early today!
Oh, I envy your deep sleeping, Fedora. And I agree, we no longer need DST like we did when countries were primarily agricultural. It’s an antiquated ritual that should be stopped!
Here in the states each state makes its own decision about DST, so it getss even more confusing! And we’ve had 8 months of DST this year instead of the normal 6!
Fedora, congrats on the bird!
Hi Caren,
We do observe DST so we get an extra hour of sleep. I’m a restless sleeper. I have a hard time falling asleep and then I always end up waking up a couple of times during the night. I always enjoy New Year’s Eve. It’s fun to see the people celebrating at Times Square.
Jane – so glad to see you and that you’re okay! Been away, so this is my first chance to check on the blog!
Jane, you do live in the City That Never Sleeps, so maybe your restless slumber is endemic.
I imagine New Year’s Eve is a big party ANYWHERE in the NYC area. I’ll bet it’s terrific fun! Of course, I would be nodding off about 10:30 pm and have to be nudged into consciousness for the horn-blowing, but still…
LOL, Jane. The older I get the more often I have to get up during the night for potty breaks. So sad.
You and me both, Jo!
Caren
I feel your pain LOL we have been on DLS time for about 4 weeks now and although it is nice getting home from work and it is still light I go to bed early although I get up very early as well I don’t sleep normally longer than 6 to 7 hours I do like my sleep and it is always better sleeping in winter and autumn. We won’t get our hour back till April next year LOL.
Favourite night of the year for me would be Christmas Eve.
I have just spent the day at Genre Con with the wonderful Anna Campbell and Christina Brooke and had anawesome day.
Have Fun
Helen
Helen, I wondered if you Aussies observed DST and whether it was backward to reflect the seasons. It is! I feel like I learn something new from the Southern Hemisphere most every day. Thank you!
I’m dead jealous you got to see Anna and Christine yesterday. I haven’t seen either of them in person in years now! GenreCon sounds like a blast. I’m not sure we have anything comparable here. What all did you get to do there?
Caren
This conference is geered mainly for writters and not just romance there were writers of horror and thrillers crime all sorts there such a different atmosphere to the normal romance cons I have attended and there were workshops and panels about writing I found it very interesting even though I am not a writer and of course the social part was fantastic I so love catching up with my writer friends.
Have Fun
Helen.
Thanks for the info, Helen. I thought it might be a conference for genre-fiction writers. That sounds fantastic! There is so much crossover among the literary genres that it makes a lot of sense to combine efforts in a single educational event.
In the US, we have the RWA National conference, Thriller Fest, Boucher Con and who knows how many other genre-specific conferences for writers. I would love a mixed-genre con!
Helen, so glad you’re having fun at Genre Con. Give our fave Banditas a big hug. Wish we were there!
I LOATHE daylight savings. Having another hour of insufferable heat at the end of the day is insane. Thank goodness Queenslanders had to good sense to say NO.
Mary, I love dissenters! We have a few pockets of the US where DST is not observed. I think New Mexico and maybe Indiana? It would make things like scheduling conference calls harder, but I would gladly embrace the difficulty if it meant avoiding all the sleep disruptions! And yes, here in the Southern US it also means an extra hour of mucky heat and humidity all summer long. As if we need that!
Maybe we should start a petition to abandon DST on Change.org or something. I’ll bet I could get thousands of signers!
Does that mean that parts of Australia have DST and parts do not? How weird that must be, Mary.
We have changed our clock a few weeks ago but we did the opposite of you so we are in daylight saving ….I don’t mind either as it only takes a day or two to get used to it….
I have also been to GenCon with helen, Anna and Christine
Barb, you are lucky on all counts! It takes me weeks to adjust to the time change on either end. I’m as bad as little kids and dogs!
I am jealous of you, as well as Helen, for getting to go to Genre Con. I would really love to hear what sort of things they set up for fans. And is it just books or other media as well?
I’m with you Caren – I love ‘falling back’ and hate ‘springing forward’. We changed last weekend and I was so pleased for that extra hour. Like you, though, I don’t like the darker days. It gets dark for us really early now and that makes me feel colder too.
I love my sleep, but sadly am a very light sleeper. I wake up several times a night and often struggle to get back to sleep. Bit of a pain when I need so much sleep! *g*. The good thing is those wee small hours are great for fixing plotting or story problems in my writing!
Anna, I really sympathize with light sleepers. Both my husband and my older daughter sleep very lightly and awaken at any little thing. I hate it for them! Of course, it was extra-annoying when the DD was little and every errant breeze awoke her…especially since she shared a room with my youngest, who tends to snore.
I do envy the writing you get done in the wee, small hours, though. When the kids were little, I used to awaken at about 4:30 am so I had a few minutes to myself. I did manage to get loads of writing done then. Now that the house is empty and quiet, I get very little done and sleep as late as possible. It’s not really working out for me!
I enjoyed my extra hour!
Like you, I don’t like it when it gets dark so early. My body totally responds to the signal. “Okay, I’m done!” Regardless of the myriad things left to do!
Deb, my soul sister! Darkness means “shut it down” in my world. At about 8:30 last night, it already felt like bedtime! Does not bode well for any sort of productivity this winter, I say.
I keep reading how as you age you need less sleep, but I have NOT found that to be true. I sleep as much as ever! If it happens, though, I won’t be up vacuuming all night like some crazy people I hear about. I’ll be writing!
So, are you a deep sleeper or a restless midnight rambler? Do they observe Daylight Savings Time where you live? What is your personal favorite night of the year and why? Let us all know your nocturnal habits!
I’m most certainly a night-owl; but once I’m asleep, I hate being woke up. And living in a unit complex, the worse thing anyone can do is turn on an external light (especially when it’s 1am and they wander around with a torch to look at something they could easily look at during the day). I’ve had that happen once this year and believe me, I wasn’t at all pleasant… waking up half the place with a very loud demand for idiot (so not what I said) to turn off the darned light light (some cursing added in there) because they woke me up and another three units along with me and do whatever they were doing at 1am during the day! Well, I heard another voice say, “Damn it, Luke, you bloody woke up Lynda. Come back inside, look at the hot water system tomorrow morning!” and seconds later, I heard their back door close and the light go out. So, yeah, I do like my sleep at night… but it takes me so long to get to sleep because my medications keep me awake.
However, in the mornings I have a lot of trouble getting out bed. But if I go to bed early, I just lay there in the dark until 1am…. so I just go to bed when I’m tired and try to relax… silly isn’t it?
Queensland doesn’t observe Daylight Savings. We tried it out once, but it didn’t work out and people got confused by it so it wasn’t tried again. But the other states recognise it; and we always get confused in them when we travel there. They tease us Queenslanders for being the Backwards State or the Dinosaur State or Being In the Dark Ages because we don’t have Daylight Saving… but I don’t think our state government can be bothered with it that’s all.
As for my nocturnal habits? Well…. once asleep, I take over the entire bed, pinch all the covers, talk in my sleep (nothing understandable just loud grunting and yelling; so I’ve been known to keep the neighbours awake by accident. I told my neurologist and she told me it’s my medications and a side-affect and it will get worse as I age… ooohhh… yipp-ee… how fun… o_O ). And during a full moon I can’t sleep for the whole three nights it’s around, but sleep like a log when it is… stupid but true.
Damn… I wrote in about it being a New Moon when I slept like a log, but it didn’t come up… darn thing.
Oh well…
Mozette, how awful to have the rambling neighbors! Like you, my husband has a terrible time falling asleep. Once asleep, he generally sleeps okay, but is quite restless and awakens at odd noises and things. Happily, it’s pretty quiet here at night.
I’m dead envious that Queensland doesn’t observe DST. I seriously want to start a petition to end it here!
Does the full moon keep you awake because of the brightness or simply because it’s in the sky? The full moon is a very powerful object!
Both… there’s something about it that I just can’t sleep to. I think it has some affect on people at some time or another too. And yes, I have the problem of her light casting right into my bedroom window and onto my face! Now, I don’t mind it much in Winter when I can pull the curtains across an keep warm, but in Summer doing that can really kill the lovely breeze that comes into that window.
It’s a conundrum, isn’t it? Perhaps if you could get a sleep mask to use for moonlit nights it would help? I know my younger sister had a light-blocking mask to wear when she worked third shift at the hospital and had to sleep during the day. She said she never really got used to it, but the sleep mask helped a lot!
I’m a morning person so I hit the sack fairly early. Usually I sleep like a rock…unless I’ve had iced tea too close to bedtime. Then, I tend to lie awake making mental lists and end up dragging my butt the next day. Note to self: Limit the tea!
Connie, I hear you on caffeine interfering with sleep. If I have any caffeine after about 2 pm, I don’t feel ready for bed at my usual time. I almost never have trouble falling asleep, but if I’ve had caffeine in the evening, it sometimes takes as much as 10 minutes to fall asleep – a lifetime for me! (sorry insomniacs)
The worst is if we’ve gone to a movie in the evening and I’ve had a bucket of Coke Zero. Honestly, a “medium” at the movies is huge! Then I will not only have trouble falling asleep, but will have to get up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. Torture, I tell you!
I am a vey poor sleeper, I want to, I just can’t seem to get there. I go to bed at 9 every night and I stay there until it is time to get up, what that means is I have to put my bed back together every morning. Pillows everywhere, sheets and blankets on the floor or rolled up in a ball, it generally looks like a war has been fought and lost in my bed…..sigh……oh for the days when you couldn’t tell my bed had even been slept in. I think I might be a night owl by nature but work demands I at least try to get in some sleep.
Favorite night of the year would be New Year’s Eve. Fresh start let’s try it one more time and see if we get it right this time.
Dianna, I’m so sorry you fight the sleep battle each night. My best friend does the same thing. She tries and tries to sleep, but is lucky to cobble together two or three hours a night, mostly just dozing off. I have no idea how you guys survive on so little sleep. I would be the most wretched human alive and people would run away, I would be so ill-tempered!
I bow to those of you who don’t sleep much but still manage to be lovely people. You are saints!
Dianna, I meant to mention that my husband is a real, true night owl. He is a nocturnal creature and would prefer to go to bed about 4 or 5 am and sleep until noon. He would be happy as a clam if he had a second or third shift job. As long as he could run errands or whatever during his waking hours, life would be perfect. For HIM.
I am very much a morning person, so our internal clocks have always been at odds. It did come in handy, though, when someone needed to stay awake to wait for the kids to come home or pick someone up from a trip at midnight or something. He always took the late-night chores!
Thanks for the timely post, Caren. I was just thinking Hooozzzza! for the extra hour, even though I got up at 6:00 this morning.
I’m a very light sleeper, always have been, so to compensate, I have all sorts of static noises going while I sleep — a noisemaker (I use the rain setting because it’s oddly comforting) and a fan that rattles on summer and winter, just for the noise it provides.
It must be very effective because on our last trip to Monterey, Boyd said, “We’ll have to bring your fan next time; the people upstairs kept me awake all night!”
Jo, it’s great that you’ve found the right combination of white noise to help you stay asleep. I used to use a white noise machine (though now my CPAP machine does the job). I loved it, but my husband – also a light sleeper – hated it. He said it kept him awake!
He is one of those people who has never found the right combination of things to help him sleep. He is also very much a night owl forced to live in a diurnal world!
I always get confused and thought we were going to lose an hour – what a nice surprise that we gained one lol. I love the idea but I woke up at my normal time anyway lol. Eventually I’ll catch up. I remember those days of leaving and coming in the dark and I don’t miss it one bit. As to sleeping, you are like my husband. He sleeps twice as much as I do lol. I drink lots of coffee so I can stay up and read lol.
Catslady, at least you are staying up for a purpose and not just staying up to be up.
It takes me a long while to adjust to the time change, as well. You wouldn’t think a single hour would make such a difference, but it really does!
The challenge will be at the office this week. When 4 pm rolls around, my body will think it’s 5:00 and be ready to head home! I dread when it’s dark at 5:30 pm…hibernation time!
OMG, I despise Daylight Saving… I live in Indiana and our current governor decided that not only should be do DST, but that we should take part in Eastern Time Zone… yes… when it’s six am in NYC – it’s 6am in Indianapolis. I’ve never been convinced that being with Eastern Time is so great… Chicago seems to deal nicely with being in Central Time Zone..
Cate, that is bizarre! Wouldn’t it have been cleaner to make all of IN Central Time? It looks, from the time zone maps, like the NW and SW corners of the state are on Central Time. Really strange, if true. I mean, lots of states are in two time zones, but it’s such a small area! The governor must have had lots of groups lobbying for the state to join the ranks. Smells like business influence, doesn’t it?
Oh, and looking at the maps, I was wrong about NM. It’s Arizona that doesn’t observe DST. They stay on Mountain Standard Time all year long. Good for them! I want NC to secede from DST and stay on EST all year long.
Hi, Caren–
I used to drop right off, but I now have some trouble doing that, and I don’t sleep as well as I once did. Despite all that, I love snuggling under the covers on a cold night. I also love sleeping in.
Daylight savings time, I could do without. All the changing is annoying.
My favorite night of the year remains Christmas Eve.
Nancy, I keep waiting for the day when I need less sleep. I’m unconvinced it will happen! I do hope, though, that I retain the ability to drop off to sleep easily. That would be a terrible thing to lose! And as irritable as I am when I don’t sleep, I shudder to think how crabby I would be if I didn’t sleep well.
I do love Christmas Eve…but I usually don’t get as much sleep as I’d like on those nights. Staying up late stuffing stockings and all that. I do love the magic of Christmas, though!
I love the magic of Christmas, too, Caren. We’re now past the wee hours toy assembly years, though I kinda miss them a bit.
I love Christmas Eve, Caren. My favorite part is at the end of our candlelight church service when the entire congregation files outside holding their lit candles and, under the beautiful starlit sky, sings Silent Night. Never fails to move me to tears. The good kind.
I’m a deep sleeper and I’ve always had the ability to sleep pretty much any place, any time. I rarely wake up during the night unless one of the dogs wakes me with an urgent potty demand or by snuggling me to the edge of the bed.
I loved the extra hour of sleep this morning but I really dislike the shorter days and darkness falling earlier. I like my evening light and hate leaving work in darkness when it’s only 6pm. I feel like I should come home and go straight to bed! I don’t mind springing forward. Anything that gets me more daylight is fine by me!
I am an extremely restless sleeper and it has
been my “golden years” that have evolved
into such poor sleep periods.
Yes, we do have DST and I do not like it! It
really is fall back time that I am not happy
with. It causes the earliest school bus runs
to be made in the dark and I don’t feel that
is safe for the children!
My favorite personal night is any and every
night that I get to sleep the whole night
through!
Pat C.