{"id":5779,"date":"2023-01-16T18:46:05","date_gmt":"2023-01-16T17:46:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=5779"},"modified":"2024-11-18T16:03:50","modified_gmt":"2024-11-18T15:03:50","slug":"the-trouble-with-january","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=5779","title":{"rendered":"The Trouble with January"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I have always felt bad for January. It\u2019s the king of all redheaded step children. Surrounded by the dazzling December and the frustrated king frog that is February. All January ever did was come at a bad time of year. I determine to enjoy January this year, but January makes it hard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before January was even a month, it was disrespected. Native Americans called it the Wolf Month because it was the month hungry wolves howled outside of villages. January wasn\u2019t even a month in Ancient Rome, being originally lumped into the winter which, as the Romans saw it, deserved no month. It was simply a cold shitty time of year that was better behind them than ahead or present. The year started at March, which is a calendarial idea I think we could all get on board with. When King Pompilius came along and added January, Romans could at least name their enemy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Modern people don\u2019t help the case for loving January. It\u2019s known as Dry January, which I guess is the month for people to detox after the overindulgence of the holiday season. Or the previous 11 months. It\u2019s also been labelled Veganuary, which is exactly what you think it is, but given the choice between going vegan for 31 days or quitting drinking for 31 days, I\u2019d rather be dead. My search goes on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My hopes were raised, if not a bit surprised at the naughtiness of January 2 being national Creampuff Day, but then I reread it and realized it was just about pastries. January 5 is National Whipped Cream Day. January is the month of all things cold. It\u2019s National Soup Month and National Hot Tea Month. It\u2019s National Oatmeal Month. These realities endear me to January a bit, as I love soup and oatmeal and have long advocated for days in their honor. Tea can go back to England. There\u2019s a string of good holidays later in the month. January 19 is National Popcorn Day, January 22 is National Hot Sauce Day, while the 23rd<\/sup> is National Pie Day and the 24th<\/sup> is National Peanut Butter Day. I foresee January 25being National Go-On-Cholesterol-Medication Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

St. Knut\u2019s Day comes in the Scandinavian countries on January 13. On this day, St Knut (A Danish duke) was assassinated, which led to civil war. In Finland this day is observed by men who dress up as goats and visit homes demanding food and booze leftover from the holidays. If they don\u2019t get what they want, they will commit evil deeds. As if dressing as goats and getting drunk doesn\u2019t suggest evil enough. It\u2019s said that St. Thomas brings in Christmas and St. Knut [and his goat men] take it away. And as we all know, nothing marks the end of Christmas like goat men. In Sweden St. Knut\u2019s Day marks the end of the holiday season. Swedes take their Christmas tree outside and dance around it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In America, and some parts of the south, January 22 is National Answer Your Cat\u2019s Questions Day. On this day, one is supposed to listen with intent to the meows, mews, trills, and squawks of their curious furry little buddies and answer the questions they have been trying to convey for eons. These might include: why don\u2019t you lick your asshole? I\u2019ve been demonstrating the technique for you for years. Why don\u2019t you sing the door opening song? Don\u2019t you know it\u2019s bad luck for us to go through a door without the song? This is why I keep coming back in and out. It\u2019s so frustrating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I feel embarrassed by any of the cat’s questions, I’ll just drown the humiliation on January 31. AKA Brandy Alexander Day. If that doesn’t help, I’ll just worry about it in February. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have always felt bad for January. It\u2019s the king of all redheaded step children. Surrounded by the dazzling December and the frustrated king frog that is February. All January ever did was come at a bad time of year. I determine to enjoy January this year, but January makes it hard. Before January was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5375,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Apothecary15thcentury.jpg?fit=%2C&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-1vd","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5779"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5780,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5779\/revisions\/5780"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}