Sad Sack January and the Great Holiday Switcheroo

I always feel a little bad for January. Following right on December's heels, with the lights and joy and holiday festivities, January is just kinda meh. Actually, it's probably worse than meh and downright blah.

Luckily, today is January 973rd.
Image credit: The Interweb

I'm not being too harsh on January. It's certainly not MY fault that it has a bad reputation. I mean, it's the month of exercise and resolutions for cripe's sake. (Is it cripes sake or cripe's sake? Does cripe own the sake? I can never tell if he's being possessive or not.) December is fun and food and presents and January is the hangover where you promise to never do that again, go on a cleanse, and try to lose the fifteen pounds of holiday cookies and spiked eggnog you've claimed as your own now.

But you've got to give January credit. It tries. It gives you the first day off, ostensibly to make resolutions that you're never going keep but in actuality more like giving you time to recover from giving the end of the year a proper send off the night before.  January begins gently, like it's trying to tame a feral cat. (Uh, yes, "we" are the feral cat.)

As if being likened to a feral cat isn't enough, January pretty much goes downhill from there. Store advertisements have workout clothing, weights, and other torture devices under the pseudonym of "exercise equipment". It's like finding pamphlets about the dangers of drugs from your mom except that treadmills are legal (yet possibly as dangerous). Nothing says "It's January" like dozens of flyers that say, "Hey Tubby! Time to trim that spare tire, dontcha think?"

It's not just the body shaming that got us down January, it's also the weather. It's colder than a witch's tit outside and while I have no friggin' idea how actually cold that is, it's probably A LOT. (Otherwise why would they say it?) When it hurts to breathe air outside, it's just too damn cold. I mean, it's not like I'm running a 5K out here, I'm literally just existing. That's it. Inhale. Ouch, frozen snot just stabbed me. Exhale. Ouch, icicles formed from my breath just stabbed me.

If the cold isn't enough, sometimes it comes with snow. That's always fun. Because there's nothing like telling your kid that they can't go play in the foot of snow that just got dumped on you because it's a measly 5 degrees out and you prefer your children in the non-popsicle variety. Plus, there's only so much snow that you can receive before you can't send your kid out for safety reasons. If there's 2 1/2 feet of snow outside and your kid is only 3 1/2 feet tall, now you're going to have to put a bell on them or dress them in dayglo orange for visual acuity. Even if it's only moderately cold when it snows, well, it's still snow. Snow stops being exciting when you have to drive in the crap because your work doesn't do snow days. You're an adult now cupcake, suck it up.

I think that they should have put Christmas in February. Think about it. January's overall suckiness would decrease because exercise equipment would now be March's problem. Snow is acceptable if it gives people their desired white Christmas. And the cold would be more tolerable too because you would be amazed how much warmer spiked eggnog can make you. Plus people would be too busy planning Christmas festivities to be bothered by January's blah-itude. Valentine's Day can get moved to December. If we just switched those two holidays, everyone could get through the winter a little easier, right?

While I may be waiting impatiently for winter to skedaddle and drop Spring off, at least there's hot coffee, wood stoves, and 15 blanket layers to help keep out the chill. And if all else fails, there are always Margaritas.




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