Well! I don’t know about you, but I am bracing for the post-holiday crash. I can usually coast for a week with New Year’s Eve to look forward to, and the pretty Christmas lights still up, and choosing the new calendars, and some fun clearances, and feeling as if it’s still legit to use the Christmas dishes—but after that it’s anyone’s guess. I wonder if next year I should save an advent calendar and start opening the little doors AFTER Christmas.
We are still here in the new house. I changed the light bulbs in our bathroom so now the cabinet doors don’t scrape them. Paul discovered that the unenthusiastic shower heads had filters inside them that needed to be changed, and now the shower heads are great (but why are there filters in the shower heads at all?). It’s three times as far to the grocery store now. The new house is so much more expensive to heat, and I’m always cold. I’m getting used to where things are in the kitchen, and cooking isn’t so much mental effort. It’s pleasing to walk the kids to/from school, and William can walk to work now.
I try to avoid thinking about the change, because thinking about it makes me feel panicky and queasy; I’m hoping that the adjustment will happen automatically with time if I pretend not to notice. There are a lot of things to love about this house if I can stop pining for the old house and panicking about this one.
I’ve had that advent calendar idea, too. Wonder if any are on clearance?
Is it bad if I thought this might be about the stock market? I’m nervous about that too. Merry Christmas Swistle. Hope the next month is a gentle one for everyone. Ps- walking the kids to school sounds so quaint and sweet.
I’m a long-term investor rather than one who depends on investments for my income. I prefer to think of the inevitable down turn as an upcoming sale. I’m setting aside a little extra cash so when prices drop I can go a little nuts, then when it goes back up in the next couple years, I can giggle at how I got that stock at a much better price.
I am about to leave for Hawaii, which should be a great way to avoid the post holiday blues, right? Except that both my husband and I got colds this week, we’re going with my MIL, who bought the cruise and won’t let us forget it, and we’re broke – it took all our savings to pay for the airfare. And I’m always a stressed out mess when we travel. I’m trying so hard to be grateful for this opportunity and not throw up. I can do this.
I actually like January. If you can find some amaryllis bulbs, they grow quickly potted indoors in the winter. They are very hopeful. I find fresh citrus to be a real joy in the winter. If it fits in your diet, try to enjoy some. I used to really love sitting down and planning for the new year, but now I know it only goes so far because events will crop up later and carry me in other directions. Do you think you would like to have house stationery? That’s a good project to pick just the right one. I’m sorry about the chill factor in the house; it’s probably a little worse since you lost weight. When I’ve done low carb, I’ve always felt cold at baseline. Maybe wool is your best friend for a while.
…a chance to pick up knitting needles? I wear a lot of wool sweaters in our 65 F old house.
Funny how people react differently to the holidays. I actively crash on Christmas day, “why celebrate, we’re all one step closer to the grave!” But when I take the decor down and pre for New year’s, I feel better. Does anyone else get a nice planner for New year? I got a red one and I’ve had fun filling in January!
Practical suggestions for the heat problem:
1) Run felt around the windows, there’s usually a lot of leakage around them.
2) space heaters in the coldest areas, preferably near your feet.
3) Humidifiers are also a good way to make the house feel warmer. Alternatively, put a big pot of water on the stove, and add cinnamon sticks and cloves to it. Moist heat, and good smells at the same time.
4) TJ Maxx had some soft, beautiful, dramatic scarves/shawls on super clearance last week. Take a look!
Or a heated throw to keep beside your favourite chair!
I’m a federal employee who is deemed essential so I’m about to have to go back to work and not get paid until this mess is figured out so I’m struggling pretty hard to make the rest of my vacation with the family not terrible because of my mood. Am worried that once the holiday glow is over my mental state is going to take a deep dive this year :-(
So I have moved around a LOT in my adult life – 6 times in around 10 years (though I’ve been at the same residence for around 3.5 years now! Woo!) I’d say about the first 3 months was the panic/misery feeling you talked about, but then by 6 months most of that had gradually disappeared.
I typically get the post-Holiday blues pretty badly, too…..but this year, February is BABY MONTH! So now I have a nice lovely 8ish weeks of registries and baby showers and nesting and hospital bag packing to look forward to.
I saw yesterday that Marshall’s and Ross had 12 days of makeup countdown to Christmas packs on clearance. Maybe that would be a fun pick me up? One new item of makeup to open each day? There were a bunch of pretty eye shadow palettes in there!
I guess I’ve already crashed.
I’ve never been so eager to put my Christmas stuff away and for my kids to go back to school. They are 6, 4, 1, and I’m pregnant. Everything is horrible and I can’t find a babysitter cause everyone is out of town and my house feels like a cluttered hoarder’s hole and all the kids do is fight over their new toys and make messes. I just want to curl up in my bed and read and sleep but I can’t because then my kids will kill each other.
That sums up late December brilliantly for me! Hugs x
Do you have any NY things/habits, Swistle? We have been reading and tuning into fireworks around the world on the hour. Sydney Seoul, Tokyo, Pyongyang are done. Next stop Singapore! Happy New Year!
I feel more and more like this every year. My kids are 1, 5 and 6, and it takes SO MUCH WORK* to get ready for Christmas. And then there is a week jam packed full of holiday parties that are fun but so exhausting, and my kids are up late every day and getting grumpier by the minute. I am craving the end of the holidays so I can put them to bed early every day and then go to bed early myself.
My birthday is tomorrow. So in a matter of a few days i have Christmas, birthday, and New Years are over and done with. I do not babysit over the holidays so at least I have that going for me. I have a hard time with free time. Always feel like i need to accomplish something, so on my bday tomorrow i am hoping to clean out closets and repurpose some cabinets.
So a very long time ago, a kid brought a perfectly clean mouse skull to school for show and tell. His parents were fixing up their bathroom and had apparently discovered why their shower barely flowed. No idea how the mouse ended up in the shower fixture or how long it had been there. Every single time I have to clean or mess with a shower head I think about it though. I’ll take an old filter over a rodent skeleton any day!!!!
DEAR HEAVEN
I had a surprisingly good holiday season this year—a great 40th birthday/Thanksgiving trip, a stressful but mostly illness free early December wherein everything I planned and/or needed to do got done, a weird pre-Christmas week where I succeeded in going to bed on time every night, only to wake up at 4:45 a.m. every morning, brain buzzing and ready to hop up and do more Christmas prep, and then a really lovely holiday weekend with a lot of socializing (which I normally hate but somehow found really fulfilling this year), a successful church choir performance that we’d been prepping for for weeks, fun family time with just the husband and kids, and a really successful Christmas dinner, hosted at our house, with my husband’s family (I hate to think that I had a better time staying home and seeing the in-laws that I would have going away and seeing my family, but that appears to be what happened). I am still basking in the afterglow of all this “winning,” plus we’ve kept up the activities and socializing because my husband had some time off that he doesn’t normally take.
I am DREADING January 2 – I know the crash is coming and I don’t see how it can possibly be anything other than major after what feels like such a sustained high.