Imagine for a moment that you took on the being of a day in the calendar. Image that day was January 2nd? What type of day would you be?
You might feel like the day that freshly minted resolutions quickly unravel and those promises of a week ago have become forgotten. You are not a legal, statutory or a commemorative holiday, at least not where you am from. You might even have to go back into work for hanging day like today. Friday January 2, 2026.
As a day January 2nd could be the ultimate forgotten child. The unexpected pregnancy. Oh look we have one more mouth to feed. The last person chosen for the team. Oh who brought Mark again to play? The too-eager student sentenced to a row near the back, but not all the way, who has an invisible hand based on teacher engagement. Oh no that nameless boy in the green sweater wants me to let him answer this next question.
It would take a rookie lawyer a scant few hours, even without leaning on technology, to build a solid case that unfortunately January 2nd is the most ill-treated day of the year. January 2nd brings us no excitement of holidays to come, it has no traditions of its own, and worst of all it is really good at telling us that the fantasy of new year transformation now has to become reality fuelled by more than the flip of a calendar.
If you were January 2nd would you look at January 1st with envy or contempt? What about December 31st? How do the other days of the holiday shape up in your eyes? Overhyped you say. False bottoms you ponder. Big hat, no cattle you sneer. How come those days garner multitudes more attention and interest than you just because they have a moniker to go with their numerics. Is January 1st really the sole day of the New Year? That’s how it probably reads to you.
As January 2nd you deserve more love than you are going to receive. Like Boxing Day, if you observe Christmas, is the day for retail value as the prices are always better, is the day for the first round of leftovers which always taste better, is the day to truly relax as the relative roulette leading into it can never provide.
Think of the advantages you have as January 2nd over Boxing Day. No door crashing lines. Almost every store and service is open. You may even be able to see your doctor or dentist. You don’t have a list to check twice. You have zero worries if the turkey is cooked long enough, I mean everyone would have vomited by now if it wasn’t. You are a treasure.
We should applaud you January 2nd, as you proceed without fanfare. You are getting us one day closer to back to school, work, or perhaps our first vacation of the year if we are so privileged. You put zero expectations on us and we on you. You are the first day of peacefulness and perhaps you are the first day of our new fitness, spiritual, personal habits that we pledged to deploy.
January 2nd you are an egoless bridge to what’s ahead, without distracting us from behind.
Truth be told you are also getting us closer to our next holiday, whatever that may be. But now that we have gotten to know you, perhaps we will get to know the other forgotten days of the year and recognize that everyone, like you January 2nd, are just as important as the first and last.