Bonjour Tristesse

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January: short, cold days - and the whole year ahead of us!(Bild: Dietmar Stiplovsek)

Writer Robert Schneider doesn't really like the month of January. Why is that? Perhaps simply because people are afraid of the new year.

There's something wrong with January. I don't know if this also applies to January, as our German neighbors call the month. In any case, there is something dark about these four weeks, and I don't just mean the nights. The nights too, of course, because sunrise at the beginning of January is only at 8.04 a.m. - the latest sunrise of the year, and the sun sets, if you get to see it at all, at half past four, i.e. after just eight and a half hours. But the days are gradually getting longer again, they say. My father said to us children: "Don't be grumpy. From Epiphany, the days will start to get longer again." Perhaps he was trying to encourage himself, because I was never unhappy on Epiphany. I had the "misery", as they say here colloquially. I was dreading the upcoming math test at school because I was already at an even five.