Your pocketbook is empty and your Visa bill high, the shops and bars are ghost towns, you’ve packed on a few extra pounds and it’s freezing out. The cheerfulness of the holiday season is over and the rest of the bleak winter is before us. Here come the post-holiday blues.
For as long as I can remember the weeks following New Year’s Day have been filled with a devastating holiday hangover. The weeks-long build-up of holiday cheer, shopping, eating, drinking, socializing, spending, reaches a crescendo over the week of Christmas and New Years and promptly drops us off the other side into a bleak, icy-cold abyss. Perhaps you think I’m being a bit dramatic. I am. But truthfully, this time of year can be an awfully depressing one. A lot of people throw themselves into the ambition of resolutions and new beginnings. This sounds like a lot of work.
So how do we make it fun?
Similar to the resolutions, I have devised a plan. A 5 Step Plan. Some things I will do to enjoy the winter, rebound my bank account, lose some holiday pounds and have a good time doing it.
Step 1: Write More
First things first, I will write more. Writing is what I love to do, so why not start there? My goal is for one extra piece of writing per week - be it short story, poem, essay, journal entry, what have you. Some of these gems I will share with you here.
Step 2: Organized Reading
I have no problem picking up a book. I love reading as much as I love writing. Some might even say I devour books. I will read most things thrown at me and do. So here, my plan is to have a plan when it comes to what I read over the coming frigid weeks. Alternating between mind-expanding non-fiction, business-related non-fiction, classic fiction, alternative (ex: graphic novels, essay collections, etc), and of course guilty pleasures. I’ll keep you posted on my reading list.
Step 3: New Opportunities
I will make a conscious effort to seek out and experience new opportunities. In my career, socially, and by trying things outside my comfort zone. Skydiving anyone?
Step 4: Improve my French
My enthusiasm to learn a second language goes way back to my early childhood when my bilingual babysitter would speak to me in French and English. I continued my French studies all through elementary and high school, learning the basics. But why go only half way? Algonquin College Language Institute, here I come.
Step 5: Make Winter My Friend
Winter and I have been frenemies for most of my life. Though I’ve always enjoyed winter activities like sledding and skating, over the years the cold temperatures have become more and more of a deterrent. This winter I aim to stop dashing from door as quickly as possible and whole up in my warm and cozy apartment. I will bundle the hell up and face the cold head on. I will hit the canal with sharpened skates, resume my burgeoning love affair with snowboarding, and maybe even take up cross country skiing. Take that winter!
And just like that I will put to rest the post-holiday blues. How will you beat the blues?
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