Today is the day we clear out Christmas!
In the northern parts of the world winter is dark and many find the winter slow and depressing. In such times we need change – something has to happen to keep us focused and alert. So in November, or beginning of December at the latest we decorate our homes, our offices and our cities. We introduce plenty of lights and funny decorations. We even dress colorful and funny. Are there any other times men wear ties with reindeers or Santa Claus? We even amuse ourselves with underwear and socks with Christmas motives. And we party! Thanksgiving and Christmas are reasons for all sorts of small and large gatherings.
And today we remove all signs of Christmas. We clean and minimize again. Just as big change as setting it up! And another reason to party – we arrange “throw out Christmas parties”. Suddenly we have managed to get ourselves in a good mood, alert and focused once again.
I believe we have set up traditions around many occasions through the year to introduce changes and variation since, although we hate change (our brains do everything they can to protect us from the new and less known), we instinctively know that we need to force ourselves to be more alert, see new angles and that way exercise new parts of our brains. So accept some of the silly traditions and reasons to party as reasons to exercise your brain but you need more reasons so you still need to encourage yourself to talk to other people than you usually do about different subjects. Read different books that you usually do. See different movies that you usually do and take another way or use another mode of transportation to work that you usually do.
Good luck with your new good intentions for 2016!