This one trick helped me turn winter from the season of blah into a season of aha

I’ve never been a big fan of winter. These postholiday months have always seemed like a seasonal waiting room, a dark stretch of time to be endured until nature ushers me into spring. But not this year. I’ve come to understand that if I want January and February to be good to me, I need to be good to them.

Recasting my typical winter state of mind to establish a new seasonal holiday, I blended the words “boredom” and “doldrums” into a different expression for a different experience: Doordom.

Treating this new holiday as I do my traditional favorites means discovering seasonally relevant ways to decorate and celebrate. The garland greens and colored lights of December have given way to streams of silver foil swags, aglow with white lights, lanterns with forest motifs, and flickering flame birch log candles, all on battery timers so my loft remains twinkly despite the darkness outside my city windows.

My winter programming

My TV queue is filled with cozy British mysteries—the episodic equivalent of having a fireplace—and Nordic Noir. If you are going to sink into winter, here is your inspiration.

Tuning into the YouTube channel “Street Style Stockholm,” I drink coffee and watch people wearing well-designed winter coats and bold accessories walk along a posh shopping avenue. Where I once interpreted the Swedish proverb, “There is no such thing as bad weather; there is only bad clothing,” to mean choosing seasonal pieces that prepare us for the outdoors, I now believe it isn’t just about temperature. It is also about the way our winter clothing makes us feel. Although my wardrobe core might still be in the dark shades (what I call the urban bruise palette), I did buy new colorful outerwear to present a more cheerful self to the world.

It’s working!

Much of my other seasonal behavior is highly ritualized: It isn’t summer until I make Frogmore Stew, the Low Country shrimp boil used to mark my friend Roland’s birthday. Fall starts the day I reawaken my cast iron Dutch ovens and get to braising again. and it can’t possibly be Christmas without my annual box of tamales sent by a generous Texan.

To observe Doordom in this same small but meaningful way, I am tinkering with recipes to find that one perfect seasonal defining meal: Right now, it looks like Moroccan tagine is the dish du jour.

Dry January? No thanks

I know there are folks who also ritualize this time of the year for other purposes, like cleansing toxins or dry January. I understand the impulse, but seasonal challenges are not for me. Sustaining wintery mental health means putting fewer demands on myself: I don’t want to make this time of the year any harder than nature already does.

Instead, my Doordom holiday honors little everyday luxuries: I like to join neighbors in our local pub and lick whipped cream off an Irish coffee while we watch the snow come down and spend cold afternoons at my favorite trattoria with a bowl of Bolognese and a good book.

Decluttering is another popular mainstream winter ritual, and I am using that same seasonal practice to clean up the mess in my mind. After writing down all my random concerns and distractions—some personal, many political—I put the paper in a ziplock bag and place it in my refrigerator’s freezer compartment. I will thaw my worries out later, keep what’s still fresh and discard what’s expired.

In the meantime, with enough mental white space to make room for ideas, I am still experimenting with other comforting practices to mark my new holiday season, learning what I want to look forward to next winter. So, welcome to Doordom, my way of celebrating the bleakest—yet potentially the best—time of the year.