If you’re anything like me, you experience a depressing letdown after the holiday festivities, or what I like to call “The Post-Holiday Blues.”
You know what I’m saying because you’ve just spent the past 30 days decking your halls, spinning your dreidels and throwing any trace of a diet out the window, because some fat guy wearing a red fur coat kept feeding you rum-infused eggnog at your holiday party.
Now you face a house full of wrapping paper, gifts you need to exchange, a long list of unobtainable (and un-fun!) resolutions, and a leftover shiny gold bow stuck to your newly dimpled ass thanks to Aunt Gerty’s peanut butter balls, which you shoved in your mouth by the handful.
Luckily I have adopted a few rituals to combat the post-holiday blues!
Day 1: Ignore the fact that your home looks like Rudolph and his pals played the championship game of toss the tinsel. Let yourself have a day to disregard the giant mess left behind, hole up in your cozy bed with a favorite loved one and let your guilty pleasures take the lead. Watch back-to-back Lifetime movies, catch up on your back-logged DVR, read those books stacked on your nightstand or simply sleep. With or without your significant other. These are YOUR guilty pleasures, remember?
Day 2: I don’t know about you, but when I spend an entire day in bed, by the next morning I am antsy to get the hell out of it. Take this day to get out and return any unwanted presents. But don’t just return them. Return them and buy yourself the upgraded version of the item. Don’t want those footie pajamas your creepy Uncle Frank got you? Take them back and buy some sexy lingerie. Those pajama jeans? Hello! You deserve name brand. You see where I’m going with this?
Day 3: You’re bound to either feel immense guilt by how much you spent on day 2, or you exchanged those useless swimming goggles for a pair of rose-colored glasses, so you’re happy to remain indoors. Take out your holiday boxes, blast your favorite Snoop Dog album and shove those prized decorations where the sun don’t shine for the next 11 months.
Day 4: Are you sore from all of the stretching, reaching, squatting and bending you did while undecorating on day 3? This is your realization that you have fallen out of tip-top shape during the past 30 days of gluttony. Sign up at the gym down the street, use that daily-deal coupon you bought in September for unlimited yoga, go out and repurchase those swim goggles you returned on day 2 and schedule a swim regimen. Try a new workout daily until you find one you want to stick with.
Day 5: Call all of your family, friends and neighbors and declare an early victory on 2013.
How do you beat the Post-Holiday Blues?
