The January hangover

I’M sure everybody wondered during those now distant but frenetic days of Christmas shopping: Where is the crisis?

Everywhere was crowded, everybody was rushing around ransacking the shops. Everything was sold… but ONLY thanks to the credit cards (el dinero de plástico).

Tirando de tarjeta (or using the cards) people don’t think money is something finite.

This is now an old memory and unfortunately we all now have to face the ‘Cuesta de Enero’ (or January climb), so called because it looks like a very steep hill difficult to overcome: debts, price increases and a long month until the next salary cheque.

Fortunately we have the sales, ‘las famosas rebajas’, so we can ‘cure’ our economic troubles buying yet more unnecessary purchases with the silly excuse of ‘¡es que está tan rebajado!’ (but it’s so cheap now!).

We don’t think about whether we need it or not, we just see the huge discount on the label. As if we hadn’t spent enough at Christmas we now end up buying more.

It’s just like trying to cure a bad hangover by drinking heavily again.

Regarding hangovers (or resacas), that’s another result of Christmas excesses. So many company dinners, family suppers and other kinds of parties.

We are soon to launch Operación Bikini, which will hopefully allow us to get back into last year’s swimsuit.

We drink alcoholic drinks over and over again, “una y otra vez”. But now in January we hate alcohol and we regret all those excesses.

We also regret “esos kilitos de más que hemos puesto durante las fiestas” (those extra kilos we gained at Christmas) and we quickly go to the gym or buy with the help of TV or internet some fitness equipment with which we want to lose weight (perder peso).

We hate our “Michelines” (or ‘love handles’ or ‘muffin tops’) remembering the giant doll which represented the trade mark Michelin). They came about because of the ‘comilonas’ (or blowouts) of Christmas.

With the New Year we need to make a list of good intentions (los buenos propósitos para el Nuevo Año): stop smoking, healthy eating, play sport…

But this year the pessimistic feelings of the Cuesta de Enero are bundled into the general feeling of recession.

Everybody is discussing if 2010 will be the year when the crisis will start to ease or if this is only the beginning. Se admiten apuestas (bets are allowed).

Well, while you mull it over, I am going to log on to try and flog those presents that I quite simply have no intention of ever using. That’s one of the main tasks for this month!

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