How to create a New Year's mood: 8 ideas

New Year's mood is most easily born from small, repetitive rituals: smells, lights, music, cozy activities and live communication trigger associations with the holiday and give a feeling of warmth even to an adult, tired person. For more information, see the Izvestia article.

To understand the reasons

Psychologists advise you to first honestly answer yourself why exactly "you don't feel the holiday": severe fatigue, stress, loneliness, financial worries or painful memories. Understanding the reason helps you choose not the universal "Christmas tree and tangerines", but those steps that are now feasible and really supportive.

If you're exhausted and just want to sleep, you should start your New Year's mood with rest and relaxation, not with a race for the perfect holiday. It's important to allow yourself to "simplify the New Year" — less commitment, more peace, and a couple of quiet but enjoyable rituals.

Decorate the house in winter

One of the fastest ways to tune in to the New Year is to change the space around you: the decor works through visual and tactile associations. Psychologists and decorators recommend hanging garlands, adding warm light, textiles, several details with Christmas tree branches, cones, candles.

Simple ideas:

• hang a garland on a window or wall;

• put a blanket and a couple of pillows with winter prints;

• put a small Christmas tree or at least branches of a fir tree in a vase, adding aromatic oil of pine needles or orange.

Connect scents and music

New Year's associations are strongly tied to smells and sounds: citrus fruits, spices, pine needles, bells, familiar melodies turn on the "holiday mode" almost automatically. Psychologists advise to cook cocoa, mulled wine without alcohol, brew tea with cinnamon and orange, bake apples or get tangerines — the house immediately becomes warmer.

Make a separate playlist of your favorite New Year's songs and winter movie soundtracks, and turn it on as a background while doing housework. To enhance the effect, you can introduce a mini‑ritual: for example, every evening before going to bed, listen to "winter" music for 15 minutes in the semi-darkness with garlands.

Bring back the "childish part" through rituals

Experts note that adults lose their New Year's mood when there is no room for the "childish part" — there are too many responsibilities, controls, and worries. Simple rituals that allow themselves to play and fool around a bit help.

Ideas:

• cut paper snowflakes, make simple Christmas tree toys, decorate windows;

• bake gingerbread or cookies in the shape of Christmas trees and stars;

• arrange a photo shoot in New Year's sweaters, hats, with sparklers.

Movies, books, and "winter" evenings

Experts recommend choosing "winter content" that runs familiar scenarios: traditional New Year's movies, fairy tales, and stories. Even one evening with your favorite movie, a blanket and a hot drink often becomes an entry point into the holiday atmosphere.

You can make a personal list, from Soviet classics to Western comedies or family cartoons, and gradually review them one or two times a week. Those who like to read are helped by New Year's stories, books with winter surroundings and cozy plots that create the feeling of a "home fairy tale".​

Think over gifts and small good deeds

Many psychologists note that the mood grows when a person not only expects attention, but also creates it himself — through gifts and caring for others. You don't have to spend money on expensive things: a list of small, thoughtful surprises in itself sets you up for a pleasant anticipation.

Useful:

• write down in advance to whom and what you want to give;

• make handmade postcards or small souvenirs;

• arrange a "secret Santa" in a family, a friendly circle or a team.

Create your own traditions

If past years are associated with difficult events or losses, old traditions may not please, but hurt. Psychologists advise in this case to consciously come up with new, albeit small, but pleasant rituals that will be only yours.

Examples:

• Every year on December 31st, write a letter to yourself in the future and open it a year later;

• to make a "box of memories" — to put tickets, small things and notes about the good moments of the year there.;

• There is only one "thing of joy" to choose on New Year's Eve: a walk through a decorated city, an ice rink, a trip to a beautiful place.

Get out of the house and feel the city

When you have little energy, it's tempting to stay at home all winter, but light activity often helps to turn on a sense of life and celebration. Psychologists advise at least sometimes to walk along the decorated streets, go to fairs, ice rinks, look at shop windows, lights, Christmas trees.

Such walks can be made a mini‑tradition: go out once a week in the evening to "look at the city before the holiday," even if it's only half an hour. Simple scenarios are useful for families with children.: count the garlands, choose the "most beautiful Christmas tree in the area," and look for storefronts with your favorite characters.

Take care of yourself and don't chase the "ideal"

Psychologists emphasize that the imposed picture of the "perfect New Year" from advertising and social media only reinforces the feeling that "everything is wrong with me." It is better to choose your level honestly: someone is ready for a big feast and a noisy company, and for someone a quiet dinner and a couple of lights are enough.

It is important to keep track of comparisons with others and gently return the focus to yourself.: what exactly will make this December a little warmer for you personally? Sometimes the most appropriate New Year's mood is not excitement and fireworks, but the feeling that you exhaled, summed up the results, and slightly pleased yourself and your people.

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