January 1st. You can still get away with wishing complete strangers you pass on the street, a happy new year. Perhaps you even can for a few more days. And you can still feel a flash of the festive feelings that you enjoy. But do you feel that sense of deflation having kicked in already?
If you are someone who “puts their all” into Thanksgiving Day, Christmas and then New Year’s Eve, you could now be entering a period of comedown. And it sucks!
All that excitement you have felt over the past, say, month and a half, and even the stress that kind of made you feel alive, it’s almost all gone, and you feel a sense of loss. A sense of emptiness. What now?!
I would never tell someone that I think it’d be best if they didn’t “lose” themselves in the flurry of Thanksgiving Day, Christmas and New Year’s Eve. What brings joy to you, brings joy to you. But I would perhaps ask you to ask yourself: “What is it about these days of the year that I most like? What is it that motivates to me to invest so much focus on these three days? What are my goals?”
Is it your desire to have your family together? Is it your longing to feel uplifted? Does preparing for these events, give you something to do? Do you crave feeling connected to those around you in your community? Do you celebrate because it’s just what has always been done? Do you celebrate as a way of proving something to yourself or others?
Once you have figured out the underlying and principal reasons for why you “throw yourself” with such dedication into these three days out of 365 days in a year, then in order to defeat the January blues, you may want to think about how you could achieve the goals that you had in November and December, on a daily basis. On regular, non-holiday days of the year.