Goodbye January

Happy February 1st!

Now it starts.  The business part of the year.  Up till now I've been in holiday mode.  Still somewhat productive, doing things like spring cleaning, adding to photo albums and getting kids ready for kinder and school.  So it's not like it's all been margartias by the pool.  But still, it's also been very relaxed.



I love January.  It's a real holiday month for me.  Much more so than December because December is always filled up with stuff to get done before Christmas.  I love that stuff and the festivities that lead up to Christmas.  It's a fun month, but it's not a relaxing month.

I notice that all the more now that I have kids in kinder and school.  There are so many end of year activities and celebrations.  And of course there is the perennial, "We must get together before Christmas!" type social stuff.  I try not to engage in this anymore.  I eliminated that phrase from my social vocab a long time ago - it just gets silly trying to catch up with everyone in December just because I haven't bought my week to a page moleskin for next year yet and I have nowhere to write my lunch dates.

Actually, could this be part of the reason I love January so much?

It's a lovely sort of limbo between one year and the next.  And no datebook means no structure, endless days with nothing to do but please yourself and take each day as it comes.  A leisurely pace and lots of meandering family time.  That's what I love about January.

Even back in my working days January was great.  My boss often took most of the month off, so the schedule was light and an air of self-determination prevailed.  This was often compounded by an industry-wide lull.  Possibly provoked by an abundance of coastal properties needing tending.  Who knows?

We might not have a seaside holiday house to escape to, but now that I have kids on holidays all of January I am free to indulge this holiday spirit, and I do so grandly.  The year for me does not really start until February.  You might say that makes me a bit slow on the uptake.  I'm fine with that.

This is why News Years resolutions don't sit well with me.  I can resolve all I want on December 31 but ain't nuthin' gonna change January 1st for me.  I'm still mentally out of the office.  On auto-reply.

For me this means lots of time with my kids (that is, even more than normal).  Lovely time where we have no where to be, no lunches to make, no uniforms to put on and no need to rush out the door before 9am.

It's a month of no or low commitments.  A month of do as we please.  A month of late bedtimes (though sadly not sleep ins!).  Sometimes it's a month of beach and pool days, though not this year.  Melbourne you seriously suck sometimes.  It's a month of tennis on the telly.  Of pyjama days.  Of running through the sprinklers.  Of brother and sister time.  Lots of imaginative play and fun times.

Yep.  I think I've just realised January is my favourite month of the year.

Do you have a favourite month of the year?

Listen to The Kinks Sunny Afternoon