How to prevent post Christmas anticlimax?

[DrSausagedog]

I love Christmas, and for me the month or so before it is a wonderful time of anticipation, we do lots of Chrismas activities etc do it brightens up the cold, dark winter days too.

But...after New Year, I always feel on a bit of a downer that all the fun is over for another year, all the bright lights come down, there are minimal outings etc and the weather is at its worst.

So, any tips on how to make Jan and Feb less depressing and prevent the post Festive anticlimax please?

We keep Christmas as a 12-day festival - save some presents for later days, visit grandparents, see a show, have big NYE party and people staying, etc.

Keep fairy lights up somewhere. Actually I still have mine up from last year!

First task for New Year is planning summer holiday.
If you have a massage or similar voucher for Christmas, then you get to go use it.
All those friends that you tried to squeeze in seeing in December - reschedule some for Jan/Feb when you will actually appreciate going for another drink/nice meal.
Start scheduling now, even if it's moveable stuff like going to a new museum, a long walk in different countryside, and plan some exciting cooking.

Have a less fun Christmas like the rest of us so that it's just dull throughout.

Consider celebrating Candlemas - early Feb. A really boring festival celebrating the uncleanness of women who have given birth, when you go to a long service and hold a candle. If you haven't died of excitement, the pictures do look quite good.

Give yourself some Christmas presents that you really want so that you can enjoy playing with them. E.g. a personal bottle of champagne, book so gripping that you fend off children with your other hand for a week afterwards.

Drsausagedog its not as busy as summer and it closes earlier so the daily firework show is at a reasonable hour for small children, works for us, with our two little ones. We've been later in the year and enjoyed it then too, but it's the only way to cope with Christmas ending in my book.

Normally we book our flights for the summer before new year. Pre-children our present to each other was a weekend break or a week somewhere in February. Now we book a show and a dinner out. Always easier to get good seats in the West end around this time a year and from professional experience, tables at top notch restaurants (think Michelin stars) will be able to give you a table at a decent time and quite often run promotions that you wouldn't expect. We also wrap up and take the boys to zoos, theme parks etc. Always quiet and if it's dry then even better, but if not then they go in puddle suits and they're still happy.

I also arrange to have friends over for dinner. I cook, they bring some booze, the kids crash out, we polish off the random spirits in the cupboard, no one pays for a babysitter. Everyone is a winner!

I quite often find 28th-30th the hardest. I don't like new years eve and I hate January sales adverts. Why do they happen on boxing day? Not festive!

Things about January that make me want to hibernate:

The sales. They are inevitably full of tat (and TBH, if I want to buy things I can do it online) and grumpy people.

Magazines (that appear in December with silver/blue covers and Helen Mirren/Lulu/Dawn French/ on the cover) trying to lull me in with crap about diets and horoscopes.

Every TV advert being about furniture sales and holidays.

we take the decorations down on Jan 1st .

Oh and New Years Bleeding Resolutions.

Just don't

Christmas is still in full flow until the day before the schools go back and our decorations come down.

I always include tickets to a show in Jan, Feb or March in the kids stockings as well as a family cinema ticket and voucher for either snow zone/trampoline park or a sporting event. So that takes up three weekends.
We go away for Feb half term (well, a long weekend in Scotland, this year we are going to Arran.
We have friends over for Sunday lunch and go to friends for meals too.
Also lovely frosty walks in the local national trust place, even better when wrapped up with a take away tea and no tourists!

God I hate the sales.

I dread post- Christmas and loathe New Year. Get very depressed and force myself out for walks to try and kill time and get through the days. Here in Scotland people are wishing you a happy new year until half way through fucking January. Hate it. Hate it!

We are going away from 28 Dec - 4th Jan so hopefully because we will have been away that month, January won't be so bad. I've booked a weekend away in February in the New Forest for one of DH's Christmas presents, so that combined together with a couple of gallery visits and lunches should keep away the blues away I hope.

I think even just getting away (if you've not had enough of them!) to visit family for a weekend is a bloody good start. You have to get away and get out the house for a few days if at all possible. It just gives you something to watch for.

We're planning on getting our 3yotickets (for all of us obviously) to see 'The Tiger who came to Tea' for Christmas. We're booking it for January to help cheer us all up.

Plan something to look forward after the Christmas holidays. We usually do something in the February break. This year we're doing Disneyland Paris. They had a really good deal on up until the 30th September where you booked two days/nights and got another two free. For me and DD I think it was only around £350 for a four night-five day break. Flights will be around £150 and then we'll just need spending money. So excited!

Don't stop drinking. Dry January's are doomed to failure and not just because my birthday is in Jan. See also diets. You can't have denial in the winter.