What Would You Do If It Were Your Last Holiday?

"The biggest mistake we make in life is thinking we have time." - Unknown

Season’s greetings!

‘Tis the season for heart-warming, family-friendly holiday films!

Knock them all you want, but they do lend a certain kind of familiar warmth and comforting predictability to the holiday rush.

The “Last Holiday” was released in 2006, as a remake of a darker 1950 film of the same title. It’s in the holiday film genre, which is not really known for the unexpected. So I doubt I would be spoiling anybody, but feel free to watch the film first because this blog will share the ending.

Queen Latifah, whom I had last watched as a hardened bank robber in “Set It Off,” stars in a starkly different role in the film “Last Holiday.” Georgia Byrd is an unassuming, soft-spoken Baptist choir member and cookware salesperson who longed to cook professionally.

I don’t know when vision boards became popular exactly, but Georgia kept a scrapbook, entitled “Possibilities,” where she kept pictures of things she liked. Fine cuisine she wanted to eat, her cooking idol Chef Emeril Lagasse whom she wanted to meet someday, her dream vacation spot, and even clumsily edited wedding photos of herself with her work crush Sean (played by LL Cool J).

One day, while flirting with Sean at work, she accidentally bumps her head and is sent for a CAT scan, where she receives life-altering news.

She has several brain tumors and couldn’t afford the surgery because the HMO wouldn’t cover it. She’s given three weeks to live.

So she did probably the only thing she could do. 

Her last conversation with her boss.
Image from: tenor.com

She threw caution to the wind and withdrew her life savings to set off on the vacation of her dreams: the deluxe hotel Grandhotel Pupp, in the Czech Republic’s spa city, Karlovy Vary.

Liberated of any concerns about the future, Georgia resolves to make the most of her remaining days and pampers herself in the presidential suite at $4,000 a night, buying luxurious gowns and fancy meals without a second thought.

By far, the clearest way to view what we want out of life would be through the lens of mortality.

I had this thought in front of me a while ago, and it gave me a clarity I’d never had before.

I thought, well, if I was going to die soon, did I really want to spend any more time in a meaningless routine?  Get up. Work. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.

Nah.

I didn’t want to spend any more time living in joyless urgency.

I didn’t really think about doing anything as crazy as blowing my money on a luxurious vacation. I realized I wanted to spend time with loved ones, find joy in life’s daily doldrums and finally do what I had long wanted to do… which was to write in whatever way, shape, or form.

So I did. It accelerated the creation of this blog.

For years I’d dreamt about writing, I just didn’t have the right headspace to sit still and do so. And now, I did!

Going back to the film, a now carefree Georgia enjoys her vacation and charms many newfound friends along the way, including the chef at the hotel. She realizes how much of life she missed just being afraid.

In true holiday film fashion, Sean rushes to the hotel to declare his affection at the same time that Georgia receives the news that the doctor had misdiagnosed her because of a faulty CAT scanner.

At the end of the film, the happy couple opens a restaurant back in Louisiana with the help of the head chef she met at Grandhotel Pupp, her food idol Chef Emeril visits the opening, and all’s well that ends well.

For me, the only thing missing was a rap number by the leads (only half-kidding). It was as pleasant and entertaining as a fluffy holiday film could be.

In all its simplicity, its premise can make you do a double take on your own life.

How long do we need to wait until we do what we really want to do? Until we take that vacation, put up that business, take steps to make our daily lives better?

Georgia tells herself she’d do it differently if she could do it all over again.
Image from: Netflix

When we reach the end of our lives, nobody would ever regret laughing as much, loving as much, or seeing the world as much as we did. What we may regret though, would be doing less of the things we wanted to do.

When you reach the final second of a shot clock with the ball in your hands, you have a chance to shoot your shot, or do nothing.

The thing is, nobody wins when you do nothing, or when you don’t do what you’re meant to do.

What would you do on your last holiday?

"Choose uncomfortable enlargement over comfortable diminishment every time."

- Burkeman, Oliver.  Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals.