It’s freezing cold and snow has come late to us. The snow is insult to injury, as anything remotely Christmassy mocks us after the day. Decorations, a tree, a mall. Snow before Christmas is cozy, charming, fits with the mood. But did we get a White Christmas? Hell no. We did, however, get a frozen, slippery return to our miserable jobs.
What astounds me still is how easily I used the word January in December. How I flung it around like it was an order for McNuggets. ‘Oh, why don’t we do when we get back in January.’ ‘We’ll worry about that in January. Have a Merry Christmas!’ Whoever I was speaking to would agree and we would settle into the comfort that comes from careening towards a two-week break centered around eating and drinking too much while getting gift certificates for books.
But now, here we are. January. It’s no wonder this fakakta month is chock full of strange please-don’t-do-yourself-in observances. It starts out January 1 with Z Day. Oh, this delightfully quirky holiday regulates that Zs come first in that day. Which is no doubt a nice way to celebrate your year’s biggest hangover.
In this wretched month, the 14th is dress up your pet day. But this is nothing special as my dog has the sweater and jacket selection of a minor Kardashian. For Christmas, that holiday that seemingly occurred six months ago, I got a doggy carrier. I am that man. I own it. I also own three doggy carriers. I feel like this is going to end up on a form one day.
I once tried to put a tiny Santa hat on the cat and the reason I know how to say that in Czech is because I had to explain the situation to the ER nurse later that afternoon. For my cat, January 22 is evidently ‘answer your cat’s question day’ which explains why she was shouting at me at 5:30 am. She has a lot on her mind and only one day to find out where I keep the tuna.
January is evidently the month most breakups and divorces happen. It’s not hard to believe that what with the holidays having just past and gifts having already been handed over.
But January has long been the month of getting back to it after merriment. January 7th in the medieval period was called Distaff Day – when women went back to spinning work after Epiphany (Jan 6) and the 12-day Christmas celebration. (A distaff is a wooden rod (staff) that holds flax or wool that women had to laboriously spin fabrics on before someone invented a spinning wheel and women got to labor over other horrible jobs.) Husbands had a bit of fun by setting fire to the flax on their wives’ distaffs, while the women would playfully retaliate by pouring a bucket of water over their husbands’ heads. Though setting fire to ones partner has long been a fantasy, January’s high divorce rate suddenly makes sense.
The first Monday after Epiphany was traditionally the start of the agricultural season. Men celebrated this by not doing much work, but by dressing in white smocks decorated with ribbons, and dragging the plow through the village and collecting money for the ‘plow light’ that was kept burning in the church all year. It was a to-do and men from several farms joined together to pull the plow through all their villages. They sang and danced to music. In the evening, each farmer provided a Plough Monday supper for his workers, with plentiful beef and ale for all.
Now it’s this kind of thinking I can get behind.
The Romans celebrated January by first naming it after their god Janus – the two-faced god who looked back at the past and ahead at the future. They gave gifts called strenae, such as figs, honey, and dates, meant to offer good luck and, I guess, a snack. The Romans understood the come down that was January. Their celebration of Saturnalia is arguably ancestor of Christmas and involved a lot more hedonism than we do. We have Santa and Baby Jesus, but the Romans drank their faces off and did role reversals with their slaves. January was probably more of a comedown than we can possibly imagine. Sure it’s hard to face people from the office after blabbing about the boss’ stupid Instagram post at the party, but much harder to face your master after you’ve spanked him senseless. Oh well. I guess that explains the figs.
