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JOURNAL
January 2005
THE BLESSINGS OF JANUARY
We all remember childhood Christmases with great fondness. Even the not so good ones, we cling to the best moments the holiday had to offer. My mother, for example, who grew up rather poor in rural Maine, has one memory that seems to stick out more prominently than the new doll or bicycle or sweater or necklace. "We would be thrilled to get an orange in our stocking," she has told us on several occasions. "We never got them any other time of year." Such is the magic of Christmas.
As adults, we seem to desperately try to reclaim some of that magic. Year after year, we seem to up the ante in a frantic bid to make Christmas better than the year before. We try to buy more exciting and more expensive gifts, we try to out-decorate our neighbors, we allow our radio stations to pump out the Christmas music 24/7 from the day before Thanksgiving until Christmas night, we try to fit in more parties, we try to bake more elaborate goodies, we try to cram in time to see the shop windows and special events the season has to offer, we decide to send out, say, 50 Christmas cards, only to go back and buy and send more when we unexpectedly receive cards from long-lost friends.
Nobody tries harder to reclaim the Christmas magic than I do. I am like a wind-up Stepford Wife when the season comes 'round, dispensing cheer and a maniacal smile to everyone I meet. This year, on December 26th, after driving back to Manhattan through parking-lot-traffic in my $400 rental car (for three days), I had a revelation: I realized that all the effort was just making me tired.
And then I had a bigger revelation: I looked forward to the wide expanse of cold January spread out before me. January, I realized, has always been an unappreciated, even reviled, month. This year, I plan to make it my own, and a favorite.
Think about it. No party obligations! No getting up early on a Saturday to get down to Macy's to fight the crowds for sale items! No pulling out ladders to gussy up your place only to take it all down a few weeks later! No major gifts to buy and, if you're lucky, maybe a little cash leftover from your bills to go see that half-price Broadway show that the tourists won't come out in the cold to see or to catch up on all those Oscar-hyped movies that you couldn't get to in December. You're feeling fat and disgusting from the holidays so you actually stick to your resolution to go to the gym for this month. You now have the time to settle in and enjoy some of those gifts you got in December: the iPod, the plush robe you can wear all day Saturday because you have nothing else to do, the DVDs of the summer blockbusters you missed while on vacation, all the other Dan Brown books, the new ice skates, the widescreen TV that you can warm up while awaiting the Super Bowl. Have an impromptu get-together with a few friends on a Sunday afternoon to try out that new version of Monopoly. You'll feel like a kid again.
In January, the adrenaline rush of December has passed and you can finally focus on what you need for the new year. Maybe you can take that Word XL class at the community college, join the book club at the local library, volunteer one afternoon a week tutoring a teenager, or finally paint the bathroom that new shade of yellow you've been eyeing. Even if your ambitions begin to slide come March, you can be satisfied knowing you did something useful in January and rest on those laurels until the guilt kicks in in June, the halfway point of the year.
There will be plenty of time in February and March to bitch about the endless winter, the deep freeze, the lake-sized puddles of slush, the blackening snowbanks. February can be a depressing month, especially if you are loveless on the 14th. Even the one holiday has lost its character, becoming the generic Presidents Day. The only thing good that can be said for it is that it's a few days shorter than the other months. March, however, can be more cruel. You can break out the spring pastels after a few lucky, balmy days early on, only to be wrapped up in mittens and scarves again for the St. Patrick's Day Parade. I seem to remember biting winds and gray skies, never blue, in March.
January, however, offers possibilities as far as the eye can see and the heart can hope, possibilities that are never fathomed in crazed December, so bogged down are we in the day to day crush of activities. Enough of that pressure cooker of holiday cheer that often ends with a feeling of desperation on New Year's Eve. Allow yourself to be glad that all that bunk is over with and open your arms wide to embrace that vast tundra of blessed nothingness that is January. May it go by slowly.
What's Your Opinion?
KevScoHall@Verizon.net