Five Cool Reasons to Love January
We’re on an “embrace January” campaign around my house, which started when my kids got bummed out when the Christmas tree came down on New Year’s Day. It’s taken them a week to adjust to the fact that the holidays are indeed over. I can’t take credit for this ingenious idea; it’s the brainchild of my husband. I’m just taking it upon myself to spread the Gospel according to January.
1. Holiday recuperation. If necessary, January provides you with a full-scale reason to do as little as possible in effort to recuperate from the holidays. Many of us become exhausted from the socialization and traveling the holidays typically entail. It’s natural and essential that we turn inward and hibernate a bit. You’ve earned the right to a little down time. Catch up on your reading and sleeping.
2. Winter activities. Okay, so we don’t have any real snow just yet, but there’s plenty of man-made snow at the ski resorts such as Blue Mountain and Jack Frost Big Boulder in the Poconos. Not into skiing? It’s still not too cold or too inclement for winter walks, hikes, and bike rides: you can easily go for winter hikes without fear of freezing or falling on slippery surfaces. We’re loaded with places in the Valley for good walks and hikes, whether that’s parks, rails to trails, or taking an invigorating walk with friends around your neighborhood.
3. Time to clean house. January is the perfect time to reorganize, re-prioritize, think through how things generally work around your house and in your family, however you define that. In our house, this means Christmas toys need a new home, so that means new storage solutions. I’m dreaming of a day when I can hire Easton-based Chris Fairchild of InOrder to Organize to come and do my office and our walk-in closet, or at the very least get one of his smart organizational systems to put just inside our front door.
4. January means catching up on television programs you’ve fallen behind on. It means blitzing and watching the entire first season of Battlestar Gallactica, as we did a few years ago when we came to the program about a season behind the rest of the free world. It means scheduling marathon sessions of your favorite sequels, prequels, trilogies (Harry Potter, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings) and not feeling the slightest bit of guilt about it.
5. Huge sales. For anyone who has money left over, January wants it. For as long as I can remember, it’s typically a great time to buy furniture (Monarch, in downtown Easton, always has big sales. And it’s the time when the department stores have those things that used to be called “white sales”—y’know, bed linens, pillows, bath towels, etc.
How about you? What’s your favorite post-holiday ritual for January?
Carrie Havranek is a writer in Easton who wants a good snowfall so she can love January even more.