Resolutely No Resolutions

I have nothing new or enlightening to say about New Year and the compulsion to make resolutions. Most seem doomed to failure. Dry January, for example. It’s understandable you’d want a few days off after the excesses of the holidays, but in the coldest, wettest month of the year, surely anything that gets you through it is a bonus? March is the best month to be abstemious I would have thought, when the days are lighter (if not warmer) and the clocks go forward, but it is unlikely that you will have to expose too much of yourself to a harsh glare, so any winter excesses can be shed gently.
I’m a bit maudlin today as it was time for the tree to be disrobed of its finery and taken down to join its friends in the recycling area of the park. It was Son Number One’s lucky task to accompany me there. Normally I can drag it myself, but this was a fiendishly large one – Son Number Two had accompanied me to buy it. Less is never more in his opinion. ‘Why don’t we get a fake one?’ grumbled SN1 (although gently, as he knows how much I like my tree), as we wiggled it inelegantly out of the front door, it merrily discarding its needles on the way. No, a fake one will not do at all. We are surrounded by fakery.
Perhaps ‘no fakery’ is a good NY resolution. Although I don’t like the fact that most resolutions involve censoring and denial in some way. They always focus on minimising. Dry January. Veganuary. How about more? Not less. Not censorious.  It’s a matter of semantics, of language. Not ‘cutting out toxic people in your life’ but ‘filling it with people you love instead’ so the others fade into the background. Rather than being suckered into swimming in the cesspit on twitter, only follow accounts of those you like, love or admire. Notice that a right-wing extremist is trending and choose instead to find a picture of a fluffy kitten.