The month of January is the coldest month of the year, if the thermometer is to be believed. It’s not the grayest or snowiest month of the year, or even the most harshest month of the year (a time reserved for February). While the days are slowly getting longer in January, the growth in daylight is small compared to months to come.

We will go out skiing and snowshoeing, spending time riding snowmobiles and enjoying nature’s gift of the snow. It won’t always be perfect weather, but like every season we must make the most of it. It’s winter, and it only lasts for about half of the year in New York State.

There will be days where we will go outside, and the mercury won’t even reach 0 degrees Fahrenheit, and the wind is whipping down from the North. There will be days and weeks when the roads are covered with ice and snow. People will struggle to find parking spots in the city, as parking spots are replaced with ice covered patches and snow banks. Driving will only be nice this time of year, because the insides of cars will be toasty. It’s going to be very winter-like out there for the next month.

At the same time, there will be the much needed winter thaw. We might finally for a few days loose all of the snow, and it get up into the balmy 40 degrees range. Winter doesn’t always mean that it’s going to be supercold, and indeed, we must certainly will see a brief mud season during January for a couple of days when the sun makes us think of a false spring.

January is when we get over the Christmas Season high. The lights on the trees are taken off, the Christmas trees are dumped into the brush pile to be chipped sometime when spring comes in another five months. The colorful wrapping the presents have come in are now charred down to nothing but ash. New Years Eve celebrations are just a memory, as we wake up hung over on this first day of the year.

We will all promise ourselves to do better this year then last year. Whether or not we will live up to it in the new year, is a totally different thing. Maybe we will do good for this month of January, then fall down in subsequent months. Regardless, in many ways, January is a month of great hope that we can change and overcome our human fallacies. A benchmark, that is pretty meaningless, but one we must find ourselves embracing every year.