Yesterday, I asked myself, “Where are the cookies for January?” This was not a philosophical query. January is a hard month. A huge portion of the country is getting severe weather. It’s gray. It’s demanding – we are all supposed to feel this incredible sense of renewal, but in reality, most of us don’t even know what day it is. And politically, it feels like déjà vu instead of a new beginning. If any month needs a bunch of cookies, it is January.
Obviously, if you decided that January would be about a special diet, you can’t just jump back into cookies. However, if your New Year’s resolutions involved self-care, learning to bake, or celebrating life more often, my new movement, “Cookies for January,” might be for you.
I’m only partially kidding. January just feels like a shock to the system. We spent November with an election hangover. We spent December trying to do everything festive we could to pull ourselves out of the doldrums. Now, all of a sudden, we are supposed to be re-energized and ready to take on the world and a super restrictive diet that is going to lead to brain fog because everyone has decided that carbs are bad again.
I’m refusing to play. If I ruled the world, January would be a month for reconnection and self-care. And, yes, there would be cookies for January. There would be Gwen Walz’s ginger snap cookies, salted chocolate chip cookies, and, yes, even Christmas cookies — which we would rebrand and make into shapes like fireplaces, snowdrifts, and re-cashmere sweaters. We would embrace Iceland’s Christmas tradition of sharing and reading books (Jolabokaflod), but we’d move it to the entire month of January.
It’s not that you can’t work in January, change your diet, or re-invent yourself. If you love your job or need to get moving, do it! Yesterday, I made a big dent in my gardening plan. I’m writing. I am working. I’m decluttering and redesigning. But this January, it feels like self-care is more important than ever. This year, I’m baking cookies for January.
How about you?