Nora Ephron Writes About Falling Back to Standard Time

She'd rather set clocks ahead one hour every month--we'd make it up sometime, somehow, she says. But then she writes:

I have to say that today is the most delicious day of the year. It's the twenty-five hour day. All right, you have to go around the house and change all the clocks, and there are so many of them - even the one on the oven somehow has to be changed. But that leaves a good 57 minutes that's just a bonus, a gift, a delicious way to make things last just a little longer, 57 minutes when you can stay in bed, or catch up on your reading, or watch that thing you Tivo'd, or walk in the park, or see the show at the Met, or go down to 23rd Street for frozen custard. You can do anything at all, you can do nothing at all...

Exactly. Although it brings darkness earlier and that's depressing, it does bring this one "delicious day" each year.

In 2007, I hear, Daylight Saving Time will start on March 11 and end on November 4. In the interest of saving energy, the federal government has made the two big time-changing days of the year sort of secular moveable feasts.

And, speaking of moveable feasts, changing Fall-Back Sunday to a different date will have implications for those of us in the Church. Since the widespread adoption of Daylight Savings Time, the last Sunday in October has been the third most-well-attended Sunday service in churches across the country, after Easter and Mother's Day. With an extra hour on Sunday mornings, it made it easier for people to make it to worship.

That was really handy for we Lutherans, who celebrate Reformation Sunday, which always falls on the last Sunday in October. People who figured they had an hour to kill could show up for worship and really add to the festiveness of the occasion.

In addition, many of us have designated this Sunday as Friend Day, an easy morning for first-time visitors to get to worship with us. I guess that we'll just have to make Friend Day another one of our moveable feasts.

Go read Ephron's post. As anybody who's seen When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, or You've Got Mail knows, she's a terrific writer! (All right, so I like chick flicks. You want to make something of it?)

I've got to go. It's a glorious, blue fall day here and I want to take a walk before the sun goes down.