Why is the week between Christmas and New Years so weird?
Christmas 2025 has come and gone. The presents have been unwrapped with great excitement, the holiday themed parties have come to an end and the delicious Christmas themed home cooked meals have been enjoyed. It was a great time spent with family, friends and loved ones. Now for one final week. One more mad dash to the finish line in hopes of accomplishing those end of the year goals or tasks that you put off for so long.
The last week of the year, the week between Christmas and New Years, is a weird, strange, boring and even twilight zone-ish period of time. It’s a week that we’re all stuck in a type of limbo. We see the magic of the new year quickly approaching and are looking back on the past year with fondness. The faint shine of the Christmas tree lights in the early morning hours begin to fade much like the last week of the year. The week between Christmas and New Years is a weird time of the year. It’s filled with a lack of routine, sluggish lazy days and time begins to lose all meaning. If you’re like me you look forward to all the possibilities of the new year with excitement.
Whether you use this week to rest and relax or you’re feeling the pressure and anxiety to get to the finish line, I think we all can agree. The week between Christmas and New Years feels weird. As 2025 comes to an end here are three reasons why I think the last week of the year is weird for many of us.
Time Is a Lie and has no meaning: Time is essentially meaningless during this week. Is it Monday? Is it Wednesday? Nobody really knows what day it is unless you’re watching the wall clock in the kitchen tick away. But by mid-week even the ticking sound from the wall clock begins to melt into oblivion like the cheese from a grilled cheese sandwich melting on the pan. Maybe you sit around in your PJ’s listening to Christmas music or you spend time ice fishing with your buddies but every gloomy winter day feels like it’s Sunday evening. Tomorrow’s Monday and you’ve got a case of the Sunday scaries. Panic begins to set in and everyday bleeds into the next and then repeats. The only hope we have during this week is the excitement of what a new year brings.
To eat or not to eat leftovers: You’re trapped in what feels like an endless cycle of eating that holiday ham or the Christmas meatloaf and potatoes that your sweet aunt brought. The Christmas cookies have began to lose their flavor and slowly gone stale. By the end of the week, you’re debating whether to eat another plate of leftovers or throw it all away and order a pizza.
What goes up, must come down… Holiday Edition: As you sip your morning coffee you notice that the Christmas tree has begun to shed like your adorable pooches winter shedding, the decorations on the tree begin to sag and that expensive inflatable north pole set that you use once a year is being tossed around like a kite on a windy summer day. Rudolph and the reindeer briefly hover in the air and the one Christmas elf seems to mock you but the idea of packing it all up feels daunting. After you’ve spent hours or days putting up the decorations, you realize you have to take it all down. The simple and easy task of packing it all up and putting it in storage bins seems like it might take weeks or months.
If you’re feeling the post-Christmas blues and tired of eating the same leftovers just know that it’s not forever. The weirdness of the week will quickly end and life will get back to normal. The promise of a new year is right around the corner. Don’t get stuck in the limbo of the week and keep moving forward.