New Year's Humbug

January again, huh? While everyone else is starting the New Year with a fresh, positive attitude, embarking on a healthier lifestyle, you’ll find me hiding under a rock somewhere, eating leftover fruitcake in denial and muttering some very crabby things not to be printed here.

While I’m normally an optimistic, happy-go-lucky kind of gal, once a year, right around this time, I turn into a bit of a Scrooge. I’ve just spent the last two months as a major booster of all things festive: overeating, overdrinking, overspending, and overextending myself in pretty much every conceivable way, save for sleeping…in short, fully embracing the average North American lifestyle that the experts say is doing us in. But let’s face it–in the early days of winter, this makes perfect sense. I believe it’s all an elaborate scheme we’ve come up with to take our minds off the fact that it’s cold and dark outside and that spring is still a very long way away.

But we must have a twisted sense of humour. After November and December’s delicious days of self-delusion, the best we could come up with for January was–self-improvement? Yuck! I’ll be lucky if I can get the decorations put away and pay off my bills this month, much less improve anything. The only thing exciting about January is the clearance sales, but for once (and you know that it hurts me to say this), I’m feeling all shopped out.

It’s not just the exhaustion talking, though. I just can’t seem to get on board with the seasonal timing of all these swell new resolutions. Why should I want to tone up under all these sweaters, where no one will even notice? Why should I try to eat more fruits and vegetables, when hardly anything is fresh and local? Why would I attempt to get more exercise when it’s so dark outside, I can’t even go for an after-dinner stroll?

Maybe my New Year’s resolution should be to go to Hawaii every January. Then I’ll have my motivation to look fit in a bathing suit. While I’m there, I’ll eat more fresh produce, have lots of restful sleep, and get plenty of exercise, swimming and horsing around on the beach. Best of all, I’ll be out of everyone’s hair and no one will have to hear me whining and moaning!

The trouble is, I’ve already spent all my money on last month’s gift-buying frenzy. Perhaps we could take up a collection? Maybe, just maybe, sending me to Hawaii could be part of your resolution? Trust me when I tell you that we’ll all feel better for it. In February I’ll be back–with my buff new muscles, sun-kissed skin, and super-positive attitude–just in time for my birthday. Then I’ll have a new reason to overdo it all over again…