We don’t overdo Christmas decorations here, but I deeply appreciate people who do. And I’ve always wondered…

Isn’t January tougher to deal with afterward? Do you decorate so lavishly to light up your outside, or to light up your inside? And when you have to take down all of those lights and displays, do you find your life…blander? Like a match has just suddenly been extinguished? How do you get that light back?

I’ve actually always wondered about this. Too much decorating has always seemed dangerous to me.

The magic of Christmas is a tough act to follow, but I’ve always believed that when it’s over, January is tough enough stand on its own with its own gray majesty. I decorate modestly so that when I take my Christmas decorations down on January 2, the only thing that greets me is the raw bleakness of January.

January is a playground, when the Earth recedes, ceases to be the main event, and lets us have our way with it. A month for skimming down snow-covered mountains, wandering down deserted hiking trails, bip-bopping into warm coffee houses, and finally being freed from the noise and pretentiousness of summer.

Any gadfly can appreciate summer. It takes a true philosopher to appreciate January.

It has been said that January is the month for dreaming. 2022 will go down on record as the most important year of my life, and I get all lit up inside when I think about the things that are going to reveal themselves through those twelve months. My life as it is now will not be even vaguely familiar when 2022 is through.

And no amount of Christmas lights can compete with that.