It’s over. The bows and ribbons have been tossed in the trash. The toys that the kids just “had to have” have been played with once and abandoned. The frosted cookies are just a distant memory but the extra 10 (okay maybe 15) pounds of holiday cheer still lingers. The tinny Christmas carols that I heard in every store have finally stopped ringing in my ears.

And now it’s January. It’s cold. It’s bleak. I miss the holidays.

How do you deal with the inevitable slump after the holidays? Don’t despair. Do something about it.

My first choice is a month’s vacation on a warm beach somewhere far away. Unfortunately the family budget has already been stretched by too many trips to the mall. So here are my ways to deal with the January blues:

Imagine it’s July. Throw a Beach Blanket party, indoors of course. Pull out your Hawaiiann shirts (forget the bathing suits – that certainly wouldn’t cheer you up). Find some Beach Boys music and crank it up. Put a blanket in the middle of the living room and make a picnic. Just add some grass skirts and dance until you feel warmer.

Twinkletoes. Paint your toenails a color you would never paint your nails. Or paint each toe a different color with sparkles and tiny smiley-face decals. Make them as silly as possible. No one else has to see them, but it’s guaranteed to put a smile on your face when you’re at a dull meeting at work and you remember your polka-dotted big toenail. Another plus is that you can’t do any laundry or clean when you’re painting your toenails. You just have to just sit there until they’re dry. Darn, and I so wanted to scrub the grout around the bathtub – I guess I’m going to have to wait until my toenails dry. (Maybe you should put a few coats on just to make sure it looks good.)

Hide under the covers. Trade the blankets of snow outside for the nice cozy blankets on your bed. After all the excitement of the holidays, you need to re-energize. Tell your husband and the kids to go out while you spend a glorious, decadent, and quiet afternoon taking a well-deserved nap.

Bring the outdoors in. I like everything about snow except that it’s cold and wet and slippery and slushy. Did I mention that it’s cold? So stay inside. Roast marshmallows in the fireplace. Make a hot chocolate bar with different toppings. A hot chocolate bar is like a salad bar except it has things on it that kids will actually eat. Include big and little marshmallows, whipped cream, and vanilla ice cream – my personal favorite. (Hmmm, no wonder those extra pounds won’t go away.)

Have a whine tasting party. Share your favorite tasty holiday whine with your friends. Tell them how your sister-in-law “forgot” to mention that she was on a special diet until she showed up at your house for dinner and couldn’t possibly eat anything you had made. Or complain about how your mother managed to make you feel 6 years old again by telling everyone that boring story about the monster trap you made with some shoes, a baby rattle and a stale peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You can get some sympathy and your friends can be glad their families aren’t as bad as yours.

As for me, I’m going to put on my sandals, find some surfing songs, and listen until either I feel warmer or the kids think I’m crazy. Aloha.

Laura Browne is the author of a practical & easy-to-use book for women, Why Can’t You Communicate Like Me? How Smart Women Get Results At Work. To register for her Free Teleconference on How To Deal With Difficult People, go to http://www.inyourfaceink.com (This book is available at the website and at Barnes & Noble online.)

When Laura isn’t writing, she helps women be more successful through WOMEN Unlimited, a nationally recognized resource for cultivating leadership excellence, http://www.women-unlimited.com

(This article was originally printed in Cranberry Magazine.)

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