The temperature outside is currently hovering around 2°C. The sun will set shortly after four, plunging us into darkness a good two hours before I finish work. January is bleak, and its bleakness stretches out without end: there are no festive lights to look forward to, no New Year’s Eve fireworks, nothing bright or joyful to bring hope except the vague promise that in 12 or so weeks we might – just might – get the first flickers of spring.
We get winter wrong, front-loading the festivities in December before it’s even properly cold and then abandoning ourselves to despair for the first month of the new year. Maybe this is my suspected seasonal affective disorder at play, but I have always found January a struggle. If you want to try giving up booze or meat or anything else you enjoy, it strikes me as absurd to do it when the calendar is at its most depressing. So here is my January survival plan: treat it like December.
The run-up to Christmas is always such a frenzied whirlwind of pub drinks, carol concerts, present-buying and office parties that it’s impossible to fit everything in. A few years ago, I realised that much of the seasonal festivities cities like London put on for Christmas could be postponed a few weeks. Take ice-skating, for example, a tradition in our household since I convinced my now-husband to put on a pair of skates for the first time at the very start of our relationship. The Christmas ice rink at Somerset House, central London, stays open the first week in January. So do many of the others. It’s both cheaper and less crowded than going in December, with the added bonus that they play pop songs that are actually good instead of claw-your-ears-out Christmas music. It was my treat to myself this year for making it through the first work week of 2025. And it was magical.
A similar trick can be applied to all the pop-up Christmas shows and pantomimes. The sequinned acrobats spinning on ropes tied to their own hair at the Leicester Square Christmas market were just as sensational in early January as in mid-December, and even more appreciated given the discount on the tickets.
Previous generations knew people needed to extend the merriment as long as possible. The conclusion of the Christmas season isn’t technically until Candlemas on 2 February, which celebrates the presentation of Jesus to the Temple. So if your tree gives you joy and you want to keep it up a bit longer, don’t let anyone stop you.
There is also, of course, the medieval Feast of the Ass on 14 January, commemorating the donkey that carried Mary and Joseph when they fled into Egypt. It was a Feast of Fools-style celebration of the absurd, with donkeys brought into churches. I know about this because the American sex and relationships advice columnist Dan Savage recently discovered it and has been using his podcast to encourage a revival. But the point remains: we need things to look forward to at this time of the year more than any other, and I like the idea of going back into history and reclaiming festivals that have fallen out of favour.
For those to whom the Feast of the Ass does not appeal, there’s always Burns Night. I married into Scottish ancestry (there was ceilidh-klezmer fusion dancing at our wedding) and have found the annual Address to the Haggis vital for warding off the wintry gloom. There is nothing like a ceilidh to get your spirits up as January trudges into its final week. The whisky is optional; stripping the willow is not.
Finally, just rethink your calendar. From November onwards, every time someone suggests “getting a catch-up drink before Christmas”, offer them a date in the new year instead. Your December self will be relieved you’re not triple-booked each night; your January self will have something to look forward to. Oh, and you’ll actually get a seat in a pub that isn’t crammed with tourists and playing “All I Want for Christmas Is You” on a soul-destroying loop. Who knows, there might even be snow.
[See also: It will take more than cash to repair the NHS]
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This article appears in the 15 Jan 2025 issue of the New Statesman, The Disruptors