T here is a moment about halfway through Christmas dinner when the cracker hats have slipped askew, shoes been kicked off under the table and belts un-notched, that marks the official end of the season of Making An Effort. A frenzied month of putting on mascara in the work loos and shivering on the way home because you are wearing your fancy coat instead of your warm one is over, up in flames along with the Christmas pudding brandy. Time to breathe out, shift into a lower gear, adjust to the sacred interlude of cheese and telly, half-eaten chocolate reindeers and gap-toothed jigsaws that is Twixmas.
So it can feel a little tricky, a few days later, to go full jazz-hands for New Year’s Eve. But that’s what we are doing. I have decided that we are getting dressed up for new year this year.
Yes, I mean you. I mean all of us. OK, calm down, obviously not absolutely everyone, I’m not the Fun Police.
If you twisted your ankle dancing on the table after Christmas lunch, or if your baby doesn’t sleep through the night, if you are working, then I will turn a blind eye. But for the rest of us, it is time for one last push. No excuses.
Before you know it, it will be January, and we will all be beached at home, wind whistling through the empty pages of our diaries. New year is the finale of the festivities. It is the fireworks display that marks the end of party season.
It is only fitting to go out with a bang. But should wriggling back into an LBD feel like too much, at this poi.