Sunday, December 31, 2023

Hello January & Mercifully 2024!

 Good bye and good riddance to 2023.  It has been a generally miserable year.  Yeah, yeah, it could have been worse.  After all here I am sitting here writing this but still it could have been a heck of a lot better.  The weather stunk, there were numerous health issues with my wife and myself and it closed out with family disruptions.  So my expectations for 2024 are quite high.  Don't let me down!

Here're the usual tidbits about the new month of January.  

January is the 1st month of the year and has 31 days.

Season (Northern Hemisphere): Winter

Holidays

New Years Day
Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Australia Day
National Book Month
National Thank You Month
National Eye Care Month
National Volunteer Blood Donor Month
National Soup Month

Symbols of January:

  • Birthstone: Garnet
  • Flower: Carnation
  • Zodiac signs: Capricorn and Aquarius

History:

January was named after the Roman god Janus. Janus is also the Roman word for door. The god Janus had two faces which allowed him to look forwards into the coming year and backwards into the past year.

The original Roman calendar only had 10 months. January and February were not included, but were added later.

January in Other Languages

  • Chinese (Mandarin) - yiyuè
  • Danish - januar
  • Italian - gennaio
  • Latin - Ianuarius
  • French - janvier
  • Spanish - enero

Historical Names:

  • Roman: Januarius
  • Saxon: Giuli
  • Germanic: Schnee-mond (Snow month)

Interesting Facts about January

  • On average, it is the coldest month of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.
  • It is the second month of winter.
  • In the Southern Hemisphere January is a summer month the equivalent of July.
  • Sometimes the Saxons called January the wolf month because hungry wolves would come into their towns searching for food this time of year.
  • For a long period of European history, the start of the New Year occurred in March.



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