It's already the beginning of January. New Year's has come and passed, and now we can all start forgetting to write "2026" instead of "2025" whenever we date something. The mental preparations involved never account for the sense of confusion or displacement that arrives after the actual event. So much planning about parties, activities, food, drinks, invites, clothing. So much emotional bandwidth expanding and contracting around the past year, internalizing the ups and downs, reflecting on what went wrong, what went right, and what we'd like to do differently. There's a automatic renewal that we all go through on January 1st, whether we like it or not. The need to define the year, project the next, or manifest something is so engrained in us.
But now that we're in full force of January, all the heavy labor of annual life reflection can be tossed aside to make way for the light, the silly, the practical, and the ever-so-entertaining dog memes.
There's something especially jarring about a Monday that arrives immediately after New Year's. One moment, it's the long weekend after the Christmas holidays, the weirdly dimensional, semi-nonexistent days in between the holidays, and then the biggest party of the year in which the whole world turns on their television at midnight to stare into New York City's activities. Then suddenly you're at work again, simply staring in front of your computer answering emails and being expected to turn your brain back on after having it numbed via eggnog, casseroles, and holiday cheer. Reality patters at the window to your conscious as you drink your 3rd coffee for the morning, but still lack the enthusiasm to thrust yourself into work.
But what if there was something to mitigate the drowsiness that post-holiday Monday's gives us? Dog memes are certainly, most positively sure to do the trick! Some carefully curated pre-work scrolling is sure to get your brain from inactive to active after laughing out loud over silly Dobermans, chihuahuas, and golden retrievers.
Dogs don't believe in easing into the year slowly. They greet the New Year the same way they greet every day: with enthusiasm, questionable decision-making, and an unshakable belief that something exciting is about to happen. Whether it's a wildly optimistic tail wag, an overconfident leap that didn't quite stick the landing, or a face that says, "I heard you open a snack," dogs remind everyone that joy doesn't need a calendar invite.
