SO you've had your Christmas fun, your New Year hangover is nearly cured and the mince pie crumbs have been well and truly mashed into your nice shag pile rug. It was fun while it lasted, but brace yourself, we're heading for earth with one mighty bump.
For the downside to all those festivities, the excitement of Christmas and the New Year frolics, is that at the end of it all comes . . . January.
Not even the traditional post-Christmas wait in the returns queue at Marks & Spencer, the prospect o
f another bone dry turkey sandwich, or the trail around town with dripping, sticky empties in search of a bottle bank that's not already overflowing can prepare us for just how completely rubbish January is.
Forget the fag packets with their screaming health warnings, January should carry a Government warning for being supremely bad for our physical and mental wellbeing.
Sure as 'former' smokers will be raking through the bin for that packet before the week is out, January is guaranteed to leave most of us wishing we could just fast forward straight to February.
But don't take my word for it.
The Saxons believed today was the worst day to be born. They reckoned it was the unluckiest day of the year, its babes destined to face a nasty death – possibly linked to the disappointment of finding their birthday presents were bought in the sales and are non-returnable.
Recruitment specialists warn the first full week in January is the worst possible time to set out looking for a new job. One recent survey revealed almost half of job seekers questioned start in earnest on the first Monday after New Year.
Still, every cloud has a silver lining. For the same day is just fabulous if you happen to be a divorce lawyer.
Dubbed D-Day – or Divorce Day – it's when all those simmering tensions between couples fuelled by office party shenanigans, visits from in-laws, inappropriate presents and the prospect of another year together finally explodes into a trip to the lawyer's office.
The most divorce petitions of the year are filed at the start of January – sometimes as much as 50 per cent more than in the average week.
Should you survive all of that, there's still the middle of the month to get through. By then those credit card bills have plopped on to doormats revealing the full cost of that Christmas splurge, along with inflated gas and electricity bills and bank letters declaring you're overdrawn.
Suddenly that 45-minute Christmas Day blether with relatives in Australia, doesn't seem such a good idea after all.
And there, lurking among all the miserable post is that glossy leaflet from the local gym, twanging our already guilty conscience and enticing us with images of toned torsos and bikini bodies.
It's the moment we step off the treadmill after our first gym session, slathered in sweat, breathless and thighs chaffing, that we realise we've signed an unbreakable two-year contract with a place we will never ever step foot inside again.
There's no point even retreating home and switching on television – there'll just be yet another formerly lardy soap actress or Z-list celeb telling us to buy her fitness DVD. This January it's cheesy images of Denise Van Outen in legwarmers, Davina McCall's slightly scary six pack and – heaven help us all – Colleen Nolan, in a revealing leotard doing the funky pony and under a disco ball to the toetapping sounds of those musical heavyweights – The Nolans.
So that's yet another reason to leave the country in January.
There's always the new Wii Fit board lurking under the Christmas tree. But don't even bother unless you want to be further depressed as the slinky mii figure you created in your image earlier suddenly morphs into Dawn French once the blasted thing has taken your weight.
Put it all together – like Dr Cliff Arnall of Cardiff University – and you come up with January 21, the day his scientific equation has declared the most depressing day of the year.
He devised it last year, taking into account January's manky weather, depressing debt levels, the collapse of New Year resolutions and our rock bottom motivational levels.
Add this year's credit crunch, redundancies and the devastating departure of Woolies' pick n mix section, and there's a fair chance the most depressing period in January kicks off right now and lasts until the 31st.
Still, there's no time like January to plan that summer holiday which, unless the pound suddenly has a Lazarus moment and rises from the dead – this year no-one can actually afford to go on. It's enough to make you jump in the car and head for the hills. But don't do it on January 18 – it's the worst day of the year for road traffic accidents.
So with all that in mind, is there anything we can do to survive the January blues? Well, just surviving it is a good place to start – more people die in January than any other month of the year!
I can't help but think – roll on February!
