Reflect, Reset, Restore: Making Space Between Christmas and New Year

Reflect, Reset, Restore: Making a Space Between Christmas and New Year

There is a small, often overlooked stretch of time between Christmas and New Year, a handful of days that don’t quite belong to either.

The decorations are still up. There’s still the faint anticipation of entertaining again, New Year hasn’t arrived yet, and the festivities aren’t quite over. And yet, the merriment of Christmas already feels like a distant memory. The build-up, the intensity, the togetherness, all behind us now.

The table is still being used, though more casually. There’s food in the fridge that doesn’t need planning, and nowhere particular we’re expected to be just yet. It’s a quieter pocket of the season, one that sits between what has been and what’s to come.

Rather than rushing through it, this space is worth noticing.

Reflect

For years, I’ve treated this moment as the time to properly reflect.

A new notebook opened - often a Christmas gift - and pages filled with lessons learned. What worked. What didn’t. What I’d do differently next time. Personally, professionally, seasonally. Entire novels, written with good intentions and very little restraint.  Never to be looked at again.

This year, I’m doing it differently.

Reflection has become lighter. Quieter. The odd sentence rather than paragraphs.
That worked.
That didn’t.
That mattered more than I expected.

No pressure to explain or expand. No need to draw conclusions. Just noticing, and letting those observations sit.

It often happens in the evening, half-watching television. In the early morning with a cup of tea at the table before anyone else is awake. Or just after taking the dog for a walk, standing still for a moment while warming back up in front of the fire.

Reflection doesn’t need ceremony. Often, it simply needs a pause.

Reset

A reset doesn’t have to announce itself to be effective.

At this point in the season, it’s rarely about grand clear-outs or fresh starts. It’s more practical than that. Clearing the dishes from the sink at the end of the day. Gathering the scattered remnants of Christmas morning - packaging, ribbon, gift bags (where do they all still come from?) - and giving things their new homes.

Presents folded into everyday life. Surfaces slowly reappearing. The house shifting from festive abundance back towards something calmer and more familiar.

These small acts matter. They gently restore order without erasing what’s just been enjoyed.

If Christmas is about gathering and layering, this is about easing things back into place.

Restore

The final days of the year are not for fixing ourselves.

And if New Year’s Eve brings with it a quiet sense of anxiety - expectations, traditions that no longer quite fit, the pressure to mark the moment properly - this might be the year to ask whether something can be softened, or even let go altogether.

Restoration often comes from choosing less.

Less noise. Less planning. Less obligation. More rest. Earlier nights. Food that comforts rather than impresses. Time that stretches gently instead of being filled.

It’s found in the ordinary moments: sitting with a cup of tea; watching the fire flicker; or standing at the window while the light fades. It's letting the nervous system settle after weeks of anticipation and effort.

Nothing here needs improving. Only replenishing.

Holding the Space

There’s a quiet strength in allowing this in-between time to exist exactly as it is. Not as an extension of Christmas, and not as a rehearsal for January.

By making space to reflect, reset, and restore, we honour the season in its entirety, not just its brightest moments, but its soft, tapering close.

And when the new year does arrive, we meet it not rushed or depleted, but steady, grounded, and ready, in our own time.