January 6, 2010 | 4:48 pm

Candy Hearts and Thongs

Posted by Mihal Levy

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What better way to start the year than to fast forward to February or even June? 

Sometimes I wonder if we actually follow a solar calendar or a retail one.  Chanukah trinkets, menorahs and ornaments still fill the clearance sections of most stores, while Valentine’s Day knickknacks and swimsuits fill the rest…already.

Could that be why we are so high strung?  Not long after the ball drops in snowy Times Square are we bikini shopping and probably going to break all the resolutions we made about actually fitting into that swimsuit and looking good.  So much for the Zen notion of being in the moment.  (Or is it being in the moment we actually want to be in?) 

Is the year simply masked by Hallmark holidays and sunny seasons?  I don’t know how many people I had spoken to only a few days ago, last year, who were down in the dumps feeling the holiday blues.  At the stroke of midnight, they did not turn into pumpkins, but instead became miraculously happy as if by magic because “it’s a new year.”  (And luckily if you are Jewish, you have two new years to ‘start over’ in.)  (Not that there is anything wrong with becoming miraculously happy, but perhaps it could happen at the stroke of midnight every day?)

Whatever it is, the start of a new year seems to have positive written all over it.  Everyone is done looking back on the year that passed and looking forward to the new year.  It also marks a time of fulfillment of new resolutions (or old ones) - for a couple of weeks, anyway.