I work part time in a shoe store selling comfortable, mid-range footwear. This means that I ended up shoving boots, shoes, and off-season sandals onto what felt like hundreds of people’s feet on Boxing Day, Canada’s biggest shopping day of the entire year. There was such a constant onslaught of people and feet and shopping bags littering the floor of the store, that I fell into a kind of meditative state. Everything slowed down, background sound fell away, and I was caught in the simple rhythms of the moment: the brush of leather, the zip of zippers, the collapse of tissue paper in my fist. It was poetry to sell shoes for those few minutes, and I learned something important while I was unfettered by the hubbub of a busy mall.
Nobody shaves their legs at Christmas.
Every year, it seems that people worry over meal plans and readying their homes for guests and finding gifts that won’t completely offend their recipients with their lack of inspiration. The hegemonic specter of domestic perfection looms fierce and threatens to steal the very seasonal joy for which we are supposed to be so carefully crafting a backdrop. Not all can remain well and good within the pressure cooker that is Christmas. Something has to give, and that thing, it seems to be, are the little things, the personal things, that we think no one will notice, unless you are me, your ever-patient shoe salesperson, who is in surprisingly intimate contact with your body from the knees down.
Nobody shaves their legs at Christmas, and it’s okay.
In the last decade, I think I could count the number of times I’ve shaved my legs on my fingers and toes, so I am not appalled at the close sight of dark stubble sneaking out from beneath a pantleg or being zipped into the leg of a boot as some might be. Most of the year, the women’s legs I come across are hairless, prepared for their public display when they try on shoes, but not at Christmas. At Christmas, it is apparent that the shaving has been cast aside for at least a couple of weeks, thrown over for more pressing matters like baking, doing laundry, and more thoroughly hiding your porn-tastic items from curious relatives. Who has the time or inclination to shave their legs?
Personally, I like to see this as a quiet revolt on behalf of womankind. While women are digging up the good tablecloths and baking as though they do this at any other time of year and digging out the comb to force the kids’ hair into present-ability and shopping and wrapping presents and engaging in whatever other unpaid labour this holiday demands of them, they are quietly staging a revolt against propriety, against the social enforcement of feminine submission, by letting their razors rust unattended in the shower.
Nobody shaves their legs at Christmas, and it’s okay. I’ve witnessed it, I’ve brushed up against it a hundred times on Boxing Day as I helped ladies into discounted leather boots, and it makes me smile.
I think it’s the small things we let go, the quiet and subconscious revolts against social imposition, that keep us sane. We need our freak flags, the little rebel yells that declare I AM STILL HERE from under an avalanche of seasonal tchotchkes, even if those freak flags are as small as freshly furry, exposed ankles in a crowded mall.
About Schmutzie
I think I shave my legs a total of *maybe* 10 times during winter.
I like the added warmth of the fur. :]
It also helps to hold up the socks.
Twitter Name: schmutzie
I, too, like the warm feel of a soft hair carpet washing over my legs in the cold days of winter.
Also, I’m lazy.
However.
Bikini area maintenance continues full-swing throughout the year.
I’ve decided to call my body hair style 1970s porn and be done with it.
Twitter Name: schmutzie
I’m going to say Added layer of fur for warmth. 60Cm of snow out there you need a layer! ok yes I shaved my legs this year, and I even bought a new bra, but nope today? still in my Christmas pjs… no shopping. No nothing!
I like that you said you shaved your legs “this year” :)
Twitter Name: schmutzie
That was only because P&G sent me a Venus Sample 5 blader it worked.
I have very very blonde hair on my legs, which means that my shaving regime leaves a lot to be desired (although, like Bejewell, armpits and bikini are maintained far more strictly.) I had a shock last summer though, when sitting in my MIL’s garden in a pair of shorts, when I noticed I had a whole patch of leg hair on my shin, which whilst almost see through, was probably about two inches long.
Yes. I retched too.
Twitter Name: jaynecrammond
I used to go to school with a girl who always had a tuft of hair below her knee on the back of her leg. I always marvelled at how she managed to miss that spot every single day.
Twitter Name: schmutzie
Hold on, you shave your legs on your fingers and toes? Women’s beauty regimens are really complicated.
Twitter Name: palinode
Actually, hon, I DO shave my toes. But only in summer. It helps to keep from looking all Hobbit-footed.
Twitter Name: schmutzie
I generally just shave my legs if I have to. And I only “have to” for two reasons: 1) I’m sleeping with someone I REALLY like or 2) I’m wearing shorts or a skirt. And number 2 is never set in stone.
If I am not mistaken, this group of commenters is a fairly hirsute bunch of ladies oftentimes.
Twitter Name: schmutzie
So, I’m supposed to comb my kids’ hair too?
Twitter Name: danasfeast
No. You could always shave it off or give them a jaunty cap to wear. Or just say they have a bohemian aesthetic.
Twitter Name: schmutzie
I love this post and the comments. I never shave my legs (though I do wax in the warmer months) and from some of the people I’m around, you’d think I was actually a cave woman. GLAD to be in such good company!
Twitter Name: SiobhanWolf
Me, too! *group hug*
Twitter Name: schmutzie
I shave my legs about once a month – right at the stage that they start to get itchy and annoying. I could really care less otherwise. My leg hair is light-colored and thin and only noticeable up close. AND I’ve never had a complaint about it from an … intimate partner. AND, I’m lazy. AND, now I can hardly reach my legs around my belly anyway.
Twitter Name: heymrswilson
Favorite phrase: “hegemonic specter of domestic perfection.” What a wonderful post!
Anyway, I just got back from five days spent with family, during which I think only three showers were taken between the ten of us, and I don’t think anyone shaved anything. The freak flag was flying all right, and it was funky.
Twitter Name: betadad
I’ve always been jealous of you people with the light body hair. I’m a veritable wookie.
Twitter Name: schmutzie
I only shave my legs in December because I have my annual gyn appointment. For some reason… I just can’t go see her with hairy legs.
Twitter Name: amadisonmom
I always do that, too! I’m sure they see all kinds of hairy legs, but for some reason I feel compelled to pretend that I don’t look like a dirty hippie for the rest of the year.
Twitter Name: schmutzie
The Palinode stole my comment right out of my brain and posted it first. Due to the stress of him stealing thoughts out of my brain, I am putting off shaving my legs today. It’s been 3 months, but it can wait another day. The only reason I’m doing it is because I’m going somewhere where there is a hot tub.
“I think it’s the small things we let go, the quiet and subconscious revolts against social imposition, that keep us sane.” Loved that.
Twitter Name: Faiqa
I call it being her-suit, her after being born suit.
Legs toes hand knuckles belly and of course now that I am approaching the divine “50″, the chin sideburns and stache. All dark. Oh yes and then a surprise … the newest growth is on the sort of bottom underside of the arm twist the the wrist and elbow if you hold your arm as if you’re about to shake hands.
The leg hair grows more slowly these days as the upper body hair apparently has more motivation, but I shave if they’re scrubbly and I will be introducing them to people. The rest of the time I don’t really care.
I did however shave them for christmas, wink wink nudge nudge;)
I must be a freak cause I shave my legs everyday,whether they need it or not. And they usually don’t.:) Never know when you might want to wrap them around a hot man.
Twitter Name: kimt205
Luckily, I’ve got a hot man who doesn’t mind the fuzz.
Twitter Name: schmutzie
If I lived with polar bears and moose I’d never shave. Damn, if the temperature drops below 65 I need a fur coat anyway.
Twitter Name: thejackb
I’m required by some sort of voodoo curse to shave my legs at LEAST once a week, no matter the time of year. When I don’t shave, my legs itch so badly that I scratch bloody holes in them. And I mean REALLY bloody holes. I actually have scars all over my legs from them itching this way since I was a teenager. I’ve seen many a dermatologist who just prescribes me some cream that takes longer to apply than shaving and doesn’t really work anyway, so back to the razor I go. But lordy, my feminist self WISHES I could just stop. At least I know you wouldn’t mind helping me try on boots with my hairy legs!
I have the itchy legs, too! My I am extra lazy when it comes to razors, and I am also quite blind and can’t see too well in the shower, so me an olive oil have become very close friends. It is some of the best body moisturizer I’ve found.
Twitter Name: schmutzie
I like to joke that come Labour Day I stop shaving my legs until the May long weekend. I live in Canada, and there is alot of snow where I live for many months of the year. That extra hair is an extra layer of protection if I am ever to find myself stuck in a snow bank waiting for a tow.
I did however get a pedicure the week for Christmas and almost didn’t because I had very hair legs. The lady just laughed and said it was okay – she wore gloves!
I actually prefer when my wife of almost 10 years does not shave her legs in the winter… When I’m trying to snuggle up against her in bed I’d rather feel the soft leg hair than 2 day old stubble. I know how much she hates my face stubble and I totally get it.
That, and I never understood the desire to remove all hair from our bodies unless you can be confused for Chewbacca the Wookie from Star Wars. We’re all human… Let it all hang out sometimes!
Good post.
Twitter Name: urbandaddyblog
I like the way you think, mister.
Twitter Name: schmutzie
My mother in law told me that when you get old enough, the hair on your legs doesn’t grow anymore. Eh, I figure I can wait it out.
Twitter Name: DTKMMeLookCrazy
How LONG do we have to wait, though, because this stuff doesn’t look like it’s slowing down. I’m still not going to shave it, but I wouldn’t mind if some of it dropped off.
Twitter Name: schmutzie
“At Christmas, it is apparent that the shaving has been cast aside for at least a couple of weeks, thrown over for more pressing matters like baking, doing laundry, and more thoroughly hiding your porn-tastic items from curious relatives. Who has the time or inclination to shave their legs?”
This nearly made me shoot the coffee through my nose laughing so hard.
Twitter Name: DExtraordinaire
Glad to be of service!
Twitter Name: schmutzie
I wish I could let it go, but my leg hair seems to get caught on my sheets resulting in the most irritating pulling; like someone using a sadist Epilady while I’m trying to drift off.