I’ve Been Cleaning Like A Fool, Trying To Get Ready For Chinese New Year
Every year it’s all I can do to make it through the endless Christmas season. The days are short, the expectation is that you’ll shop with glee for loved ones. Forget it, I can hardly get out of bed and get dressed for the Christmas parties.
This past year the holiday season was even worse than usual, as my husband was sick for weeks before Christmas, and we were in Tampa, Florida for both Thansksgiving and Christmas. We never managed to put up a Christmas tree, hang a single stocking or send a Christmas card. To compound our woes, during Christmas, I got an icky, smelly and painful cyst It was GROSS, and it stopped me from doing anything by lying around on the sofa, hitting the online after-Christmas sales.
Of course, even when I’m totally healthy, I HATE Year’s Eve. All that forced gaiety, all that cheap champagne, all those dangerous drivers on the road. So I stay home. (Sometimes I bake cookies, because my sweetie and I often have a New Year’s Day party to hang out with our friends.) I’ve never seen “New Year’s Eve” as the real start to a New Year. That may be partly because I spend the early part of January dealing with cleaning up important year-end things from the year before, and putting away what Christmas decorations ever managed to get out of the attic.
Instead, I choose to celebrate the arrival of Chinese New Year!
This year, the Year of the Horse arrives on January 31st. In order to get ready, I’ve been cleaning my house to greet the new year properly!
Yes, I acknowledge that I grew up Baptist in Texas, and that I’ve chosen to adopt this tradition. But Chinese New Year is so much better than American New Year, which is all about selling you a terrible night out, and a brand spanking new gym membership that most people only use in January.
Given how sucky my 2013 was, I’m not taking any chances in not welcoming good luck into my house for 2014. I need it. And I figure that anything that motivates me to deep clean my house by a deadline is likely a good thing for me to go along with!
