“It’s over,” my sainted wife woefully proclaims to me every year, usually around a day or two before Thanksgiving. 

“What is, dear?” I reply, not taking my eyes off of Twitter scrolling by on my phone. 

“Christmas. I mean, it’s practically over.” My wife is a holiday fiend, from the gift buying down to the Hallmark movies. 

“It’s not practically over. There’s a whole month of Christmas left before we even get to, you know, the actual day of Christmas,” I offer, knowing full well that thoughtful and well-reasoned arguments have no place in a conversation about Christmas with my wife. 

“Just a month left! You’re right, it’s not practically over … it’s LITERALLY over!” 

At that point, I often question her understanding of the definition of the word literally and offer my prayers for the students, both past and future, who would sit in her 10th-grade English class. This, of course, leads to an hours-long debate about the spirit of Christmas in which I will make many logical points but will - always - end with me apologizing. 

But now it is true - Christmas and all the happy holidays are over. Literally. It’s January. Now, for those of us in beautiful, crime-free Iuka, Mississippi, we are entering that time of the year when we snuggle under blankets, surrounded by our family staring back at us, unable to go outside and all the time praying that winter prayer, “God, please let none of us get so sick of staring at the others that he or she snaps and kills the rest of us with an ax. Thank you. Oh, and PS, if one of us does become an ax murderer and kills everybody, well, please make me the murderer and have me locked in a prison somewhere warm. Amen.” 

I mean, in those years when winter lasts into the first couple of weeks of April folks in the Clark household get on edge like Jack Nicholson in The Shining.  

How do those egghead doctors expect us as a country to overcome seasonal affective disorder when, just as it really starts to set in, the college football season ends? When I’m crying into my pillow because the sun is down every day when I get off from work, think how much better I’d feel if I could at least watch Central Michigan play Ball State in a rivalry game where the trophy is a banty rooster smoking a cigar?  Come on, science, help us! 

What sport do you think of as a winter sport? That’s right, hockey. Do you know why hockey players are always fighting? They’re mad because it’s so cold. Those teeth on those hockey players aren’t getting knocked out - they’re getting shattered from all the chattering. 

You know who has never had seasonal affective disorder? A girl in a tube top. Because you don’t wear tube tops in January! Let’s all do something for mental health and get those tube tops on, ladies. Maybe Uggs can move on from boots, and corner the lucrative winter tube top market.

January is a tough time. Elvis was born on January 8, 1935 and it’s been downhill for this month ever since. Think about it: the biggest night of the year to binge drink alcohol is December 31st. What does it say about a month that most of America wakes up to it hung over? It makes me depressed - like my wife when Christmas is over. Maybe I’ll cheer her up with my tube top by Uggs scheme. I literally cannot think of a better idea.

But, just to be on the safe side, first, I think I’ll hide the ax.