Easing into the New Year

Well, I'm trying to ease into the new year.  I've never understood those people who simply plunge on into a new year on 2nd January, immediately packing away the festive season as if it had never happened and trying to go straight back into their regular routines.  Let's face it, this time of year is bleak and depressing enough as it is - it's cold, dark and damp - without subjecting yourself to the shock treatment of trying to pretend that you can just snap back to business-as-usual after the Christmas break.  Which is why I like to try and enjoy all twelve days of Christmas in order to ease into the new year.  I really used to resent it when employers expected me to cut short my break directly after New Year - I simply wasn't ready to go back to work, still being in festive mode.  There also used to be a backlash in the press against those of us who chose not to go directly back to work and instead use some more of annual leave to get the full twelve days off.  Thankfully, this seems to have faded away somewhat, perhaps as a result, thanks to the Covid lockdowns and working from home, reduced hours, etc., everyone's but used to the idea that more time away from the workplace, enjoying ourselves, is actually a good thing.  Of course, in my current state of semi-retirement, where work is a choice rather than a necessity, being plunged back into the workplace prematurely in early January, is no longer a concern.  Nonetheless, I find myself still clinging to the festive season for as long as possible.

At least I've managed to get myself back into some kind of regular posting patterns here on the blog and even managed to get my first post of the year up on The Sleaze.  I'm afraid, though, that getting back up to speed with posts about schlock movies here is going to take some time, (despite managing two such posts this week), as, over Christmas, I've been watching a lot more 'mainstream' movies than usual - many of them rewatchings of old favourites from my DVD collection.  So, it will take me a while to get back into my usual schlock-watching schedule and build up a reservoir of stuff to write about.  Hopefully, I'll be aided in this by the various dodgy Roku channels I regularly watch, (one of which has just resurrected itself after vanishing late last year, allowing me to watch a typically near-incoherent Jess Franco film yesterday), which constantly throw up all manner of obscurities.  But long sought after obscurities turn up unexpectedly in the most unlikely places - I found Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You (1970) and The Love Machine (1971) on Daily Motion and YouTube respectively last year for instance, having searched fruitlessly for the latter in any media for years.  Even terrestrial TV can turn up obscure gems - Talking Pictures TV constantly screens films, even exploitation films, that haven't seen the light of day for years.  I've also found Legend a good source of movies that seemingly vanished from regular channels decades ago.  So, there you have it, my plans for easing into 2025, in as leisurely a fashion as possible.