Januanni

CWs: holidays, physical & mental health, finances, work, food, oblique politics, religion

I’m being a little cheeky with the title here. I just combined ianua/janua, -ae, f., “door; entrance” + anni, the genitive of annus, -i, m., “year.” So “the door of the year,” which is, at least in the Gregorian calendar, January. I’m always a little down after the holidays. There’s always a lot of anticipation, lots of time off even leading up to it. We ended up getting 2 long weekends; I took Christmas Eve off, so it ended up being a 5-day weekend, and then a 4-day weekend after that. So I came back in the New Year pretty rusty at work, but that’s OK. Work has brought its own stresses lately; we’ve radically changed a lot of our processes and I’m trying to keep up with it all. Just doing my best and that’s all I can do. I meet with my supervisor next week for our monthly check-in, so we can hopefully discuss things then. I’ve felt very overwhelmed, so the time off has been very restorative.

May have mentioned this before, but I’m also doing physical therapy now through our work clinic. I’ve been having some shoulder pain lately and my spouse suggested I actually get it checked out. So today I actually went to my second PT session and it was really good. The therapist gave me some new exercises to work on, so that will be cool. They provide an app where it’ll give you timings and even show you a little video of how to do the exercise, if needed. Thus far my sequence has been about 14min, but the new exercises will add a bit to that. I tweaked my back sometime over the break, so I didn’t get back to the exercises very quickly, but I’m fine now and it’ll be good going forward.

Anyway. The afterglow of the holidays is always a little sad. We haven’t really had much of a winter yet, although here we get more snow in January-April/May usually than earlier. I’m just not looking forward to hot weather and (greater) wildfire danger in the summer and late spring. My favorite times of the year are autumn, winter, and (somewhat) spring; summer is not great. But I should find something to embrace about summer. I do love life. I love living here. Life is just weird, at least in the US, especially politically. It’s been weirder and scarier than usual. I’ve been playing a lot of videogames, watching movies here and there, listening to music and podcasts, reading. We haven’t gotten out much lately, though we’ve done some day trips. Paying back student loans has been no fun at all and doesn’t leave me with a lot of money for much “fun,” but we’re getting bills paid otherwise.

I feel like I’ve said this before, in another life, or whatever, but I’m a sucker for the Charlie Brown Christmas special. I grew up watching it, and to me it always captured the inherent melancholy of the holidays. So much to look forward to, but just like Charlie Brown and the football, often disappointment ensues. I watch it every year still and it’s a treat. My parents bought me a 3CD boxset of the soundtrack to it, and it’s always part of the rotation. It’s an excellent soundtrack and never gets old.

I honestly have pretty good memories of the holidays, growing up and such. We would often spend Christmas Eve at my grandparents’ house, have a big dinner, sing Christmas carols (not caroling; my mom would play on the piano or keyboard or whatever), often watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation or A Christmas Story. We always got to open one present on Christmas Eve, and then saved the big stuff for the next morning. As a kid I remember having to go to sleep early so we could get up for presents. We’d either have people come to our house, or go to my grandparents’ house; it really depended on who wanted to host. As I got older, I remember staying up far past midnight, and “Christmas” of old morphed into something else. I was no longer concerned about not being awake when “Santa” came, &c. But that’s OK. I remember getting various videogame systems over the years – that was usually our only, or at least the biggest, present – and that was so exciting. Getting the SNES at Christmas around the time it came out was absolutely magical; I remember I’d played a kiosk version of Super Mario World and was so excited to play the whole game! (One of the best pack-in titles, ever). I felt largely the same about the Nintendo 64, PlayStation, and GameCube over the years. Those are still some of my favorite systems (well, NES, SNES, and PSX at least). My parents got me a NES when I was 5 and I remember that being an amazing Christmas, playing Duck Hunt and Super Mario Bros. on my grandparents’ big-screen TV (y’know, one of those huge 40" CRTs).

Overall it was about spending time with family, catching up with some of the more extended family, and we also had various family friends who would join us for Christmas usually. I think they didn’t necessarily have family themselves, at least close by, so we brought them into the fold and that was nice. For example, we often invited an older couple to family events. They were friends with my grandparents, and the wife was a retired teacher just like my grandma, so that’s how they met. They were always very kind and even brought presents for me and my sister. We would also see our cousins, who were great, and catch up with them. We didn’t see the latter super often outside of family events, but that’s OK, we were still fairly close somehow. My dad is an only child and he didn’t really have the best family life (his parents were borderline neglectful, IMHO, from all the stories I’ve heard), so I don’t think he ever really understood us wanting to spend most of the day and evening with family. He would essentially be good after an hour or two and be ready to head home, and sometimes did. But that’s OK. More time to enjoy family for us, although I wish he liked spending time with my mom’s family more often. But we always had a good time and always felt loved, and always left very full. A favorite at family dinners was this delicious seeded baguette from a local bakery; it had poppy seeds, white and black sesame seeds, and it was so good! My sister and I were obsessed.

My spouse and I have created our own new traditions, but it’s just different. When I lived in Florida, and stopped being able to fly back to Oregon to see my family for Christmas quite as often, I would spend Christmas and other holidays with my spouse’s family. I loved those times as well; different people, but also very loving and a great time. I did not love Christmas in the 80s F, though, in Florida. That felt really weird. But it was nice having family on that shore to spend holidays with, and I know my parents were happy I had my spouse’s family to see if I couldn’t see them. Now that we’re in the middle of things, we hang out at home with the kitties, make a big meal on Christmas Eve, have leftovers on Christmas (very similar to things with my family), but otherwise it’s pretty low-key. My spouse suggested years ago that we do a Christmas Eve book exchange, so that is usually our present for each other for that particular season. I’ve been very happy with that one, as of course we both love books. And it’s fun decorating the house, mostly inside, but a little outside (we have Christmas-themed inflatables, and a Christmas-themed doormat currently). It’s just different as we get older, and that’s OK. But thinking of spending time with the family as in years past reminds me a bit of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and the whole family being together, “if the fates allow.” Every time I hear that I think of Vergil, Aeneid 1.18 si qua fata sinant (“if any Fates allow”); apparently the phrase also shows up in Valerius Flaccus Argonautica 3.184 si fata sinant and Manilius, Astronomica 4.481 si te fata sinant as well. That song, by the way, is incredibly sad, if you know the context (watch Meet Me in St. Louis sometime and you’ll see it in its original context).

I’m pretty atheist these days, so Christmas is really just an excuse to spend time with family, eat fun treats and such, and give each other gifts. That’s all it really ever meant to me, even as a kid, although I used to go to church somewhat regularly back in the day (now 0% of the time). I don’t see anything inconsistent about celebrating the holidays in a secular way, making them about spending time with loved ones; that is the only “reason for the season” (yuck) I need.

I’ve written this over the course of two days. I was writing it last night and didn’t quite finish it, so I wanted to finish it up tonight. I don’t have a whole lot original to say on this whole topic. I just know the holidays have at their core a fundamental sadness and it’s kind of a mixed bag at times. Holidays, like life back in the day when I was a kid, were pretty carefree and mostly just fun, but like everything else, they change as one gets older. And that’s OK. I like how we celebrate the holidays these days, with our little family and furballs, and it’s nice. Just different. If nothing ever changed, life would be boring, so I’m OK with things changing (and ideally improving).

I hope y’all had a lovely time during the holidays as 2025 waned, doing whatsoever you wanted to do, spending it with (or without) whomsoever you desired. Everyone likes to spend their time differently, and I know it’s not for everyone. I wish y’all the best as we start out, with uneven steps, in 2026. I am hoping for the best but bracing for the worst. Sending all the love. <3