DoveFest: Our Made-up Holiday for January & February

I’ve wondered why there isn’t a big holiday in January or February, (to me) the most cold and dreary months of the year. My husband and I, since we got married, started celebrating “Blue Monday” which is Martin Luther King Jr day but also known to be the most depressing day of the year, the day when many people give up on their resolutions. It’s called Blue Monday for that reason. So we decided to give it a twist. We wear blue, eat blue foods (blue corn chips, blue milk, blueberry foods, etc) and made it a holiday about our new family we were creating. Blue, we decided, would stand for family love and loyalty.

Since then our holiday has expanded to a six week (at least) celebratory season. We’ve decided to keep the Christmas tree up (with just white lights rather than colored) that long. A celebratory season that is peaceful, relaxed, and reflective.

We call it DoveFest. We have decorated our windows with paper snowflakes, the inside of our house with pine cones, evergreen branches, and lots of candles. We’ve hung origami paper doves from the ceiling, and put a dove on the top of the Christmas tree. We have blue incorporated, too.

Every Monday, someone in the family gets their a favorite comfort food to have for dinner together. We simmer a pot of potpourri (spices and orange peel) on the stove for the smell, bake and cook yummy foods, and have lots of warm drinks (frothed vanilla and cinnamon milk, throat coat tea, etc). We are building a DoveFest playlist, full of our favorite peaceful, beautiful, reflective songs.

I’m definitely inspired by the Danish concept of Hygge (proud to say I have a lot of Danish blood in me), to find balance, comfort, emotional connection and well-being in winter.

DoveFest for us is about enjoying the winter but also valuing each member of our family as a unique person with agency, yet safely part of our unified whole. 

Some evenings we go for a walk outside. Sometimes we pull up a crackling “fire” on the tv screen, light candles, and pull out lots of blankets. The beauty we are filling our home with gives me a sense of triumph over the winter. “Guess what, we are celebrating you, ha!” And I feel so proud of our family and our cozy, emotionally safe culture we are striving for together.

I am confused as to why we as a society make goals and go without in January when there is already a sense of lack and emptiness and sadness after Christmas is over. I think movement and nutritious foods are essential, too, but it feels like a time to rest and also have some foods purely for joy. I’d rather make new years resolutions during a season of abundance and energy. It’s interesting how other cultures’ years begin at warmer parts of the year. I’ll just make my goals at a different time of year. Maybe spring. I hope we all can find ways to make January and February more comforting and beautiful.