One of my husband’s Christmas gifts to me was a new calendar. He shopped expansively to select the perfect one, with California scenery and large spaces to write our comings, goings, and appointments in 2025. Each year, he has as much fun during the shopping process as I do after I open his gift, relishing the spectacular photography and the prospect of filling the date squares with joyful gatherings and doings, things beyond medical appointments – which have increasingly dominated our lives.

We want this year to be more playful.

I must admit to a twinge of anxiety after pulling the shrink-wrap off my new calendar each year. It’s not because I make resolutions – I leave that guaranteed-to-fail act to others. But I do feel pressure to do something worthy. Will I be able to lose the five pounds I didn’t lose last year? Complete my cozy mystery book? Replace bad habits, particularly in the realm of snacking, to make better, healthful selections from our stacked pantry?  Should I develop a new hobby or become more sporty? How are we supposed to face the brand-new year?

https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=3378862532249691

Maybe February is a better month to begin resolutions and goals – it contains my birthday, after all.

After the elegant holidays, January is abrupt, filled with short, dark days… though the amount of sunlight builds by two minutes/day. Allow the few who commit to ‘Dry January’ to give up alcohol, change their habits, hustle away the Christmas tree, box up the menorah, and vow to level up.

I prefer casual, almost pokey, as I mosey through the early days of the new year. I don’t have to resolve to be new and improved, more upscale and polished, more of anything except healthy.

I’d rather be considered playful and full of whoopee.

I’m yearning for light and lighthearted fun—more staying in my lane, cutting the chaff loose from my life, and including more inventively personal badassery! I’m yearning for more community and more lingering peaceful, joyful, and honest connections.

More diversion from Donold drama.

P.S.#1 Because I am a writer and Jane Friedman is a guru, I leave you with her favorite calendar, available on Amazon via this link https://www.amazon.com/Calendar-Company-Month-Glance-134_Notes/dp/B0CV5ZRVRW/

P.S.#2 A poem from a brilliant writer, Brian Bilston, as an added New Year’s gift –