This morning, I noticed a thread of conversation on Facebook about how depressing it is to go back to normal life after the holiday season. I definitely used to feel this way. There is something about vacation and holiday time ending and school starting up again that can be a letdown after the fun of the holidays.

In our house, the holidays haven’t ended yet because we celebrate Three Kings’ Day on January 6. We also have my birthday, my daughter’s birthday, and a joint birthday party for Eden and  Judah before the end of the month. We are definitely not back to normal life yet around here.

I’ve written about how we’ve intentionally decided to embrace the winter this year and the Facebook conversation this morning inspired me to keep thinking about how to best do that.

One person in the conversation said they “hibernate” in January. Their family deliberately slows down for the month. They watch more TV, they read more books, and they work to keep their expectations lower than normal for themselves and others. She said it almost seems like February is their new year because they are well-rested and ready to start anew after their month of hibernation.

I love this concept. I love the idea of lowering expectations and really just embracing being together.

Obviously, my husband still needs to go to work and we need to get school work done, but intentionally slowing down and giving everyone a little more slack really appeals to me. I am actually considering changing up our January homeschool plans next year to better embrace that feeling. That might mean more reading out loud or unit studies just to give us all a break from the routine.

I’m not sure yet how it will play out, but this is helping me get excited about January instead of dreading it.