Winter doldrums transformed by the glamorous mundane

For those whose favorite season is winter, January and February are your Super Bowl. For the rest of us who get easily cold and are prone to seasonal depression, this column is for you.

I always find myself dreading these months. It’s difficult to motivate myself to move out from under the blanket, get outside and get my body in motion in even the simplest of ways. Then, after huddling in my apartment without exercise or sunshine, I feel depressed and crabby.

I also always feel a deep, crushing feeling of the mundane this time of year. Gone are the Christmas lights to cheer the early darkness or Christmas treats to make meals special. Gone is the excitement of purchasing and receiving gifts, seeing family or listening to Christmas music.

The day after New Year’s Day is the true first day of mental winter. Our resolutions tell us we are all supposed to be losing weight and becoming unreasonably great versions of ourselves while our lives have nothing fun to look forward to until spring.

These are months where we need to create reasons to look forward to life. We have to glamorize the mundane, start little traditions and do all those things we always say we want to do.

The following is my cheer-up-winter list:

— Start a new obsession with puzzles via the puzzle book in this edition. We can stretch our brains, even if we forget to do the new at-home exercise routine.

— Glamorize your day. Use the fancy champagne flutes that never get used. There is no law against having milk out of stemware. Take a bath with Epsom salts instead of the usual dash through the shower. Light a candle and eat supper via candlelight. We would do this as a kid and eat cheese sandwiches and fruit with romantic, five-star ambiance.

— Create a weekly tradition to try a new food, whether it’s a specialty cheese, chocolate, wine, pickles or a new recipe. Make it exciting to choose the new item of the week, take tasting notes and rank them.

— On a similar note, maybe this is the winter to watch or re-watch a long movie series like “The Lord of the Rings,” “Star Wars,” the Marvel movies or all the BBC versions of the Jane Austen books. Choose a random day and make it a tradition to watch the next installment weekly on that day.

— Get three new books to read that you are truly excited about. If they have been sitting on the to-read stack for two years, get something new. If you really wanted to read them, you would have done so a year ago.

— Visit museums and art galleries. Of course, the Twin Cities is packed with options, and if you are an art person, a stop by the Minneapolis Institute of Art is a must. The place is astronomically huge, meaning you do not have to pause and enjoy, you can tear around the place and still not see everything. Southeast Minnesota has the Minnesota Marine Art Museum in Winona, which is excellent. I went there 15 years ago and really enjoyed it. In Rochester, there are also a couple of art options. If you are a history buff, check out your local historical society. History is more meaningful when it starts in your backyard.

— Start decluttering. Get to the very back of that one closet/drawer/cupboard that haunts you. Make a commitment to remove 25% to 50% of its contents to be donated, given away or thrown out. You will get some great endorphins from getting rid of stuff and have more space for any Christmas presents lying about.

— Go to your local library. It’s like a free coffee shop. You do not have to even check out a book. Go page through the magazines, people watch or bring your computer and get some tasks done. It is a quiet, restful and oddly refreshing place.

— Make an ice lantern. Start by filling a 5-gallon pail mostly full of water and setting it outside overnight. In the morning, haul the bucket inside and run hot water on it until the ice can slip out. Generally, the top and sides will be frozen, but there will be a core of water at the bottom in the middle. Take the ice shell outside and put it hollow-side up on a step or along a walkway. When evening comes, put a candle in the hollow and watch the ice glow with color. This could be a romantic surprise, too — Valentine’s Day is coming up.

— Make a list of new restaurants and coffee shops to try or commit to only eat from non-chain restaurants for a month.

Regardless of whether you try any of these, I hope your January is filled with new traditions, things to look forward to and a little daily glamor.