The 8 stages of the random days between Christmas and New Year's

The days between Christmas and New Year's are some form of strange vortex where even time itself seems to be operating at a different pace.

These days all meld into one, where no memory is able to survive of what exactly you did or when you did it. A lot of (lucky) people have these few days off, and with all that spare time in a house full of people, things tend to get a little bit surreal. However, there are some things that always happen at this time of year that make it hauntingly familiar every time it rolls around. These are the stages of the hard slog between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve.

1) Furniture ads

We know that they're having their sales, but in all fairness, every second ad is trying to tell us to buy a new couch or get a new living room suite. While we'll admit that we'd like a good Chesterfield or a nice recliner, we're completely tapped after The Christmas. All we hope is that the landlord will accept beans and bits of string in lieu of real money to cover the rent. Who's out buying a new table, anyway?

2) Boxset binge

You got a boxset for Christmas, and now you've got time on your hands to watch it. Throughout the rest of the year, you might squeeze one episode, maybe two in a night, but you've now been awake for 39 hours straight, and you can't tell fiction from reality anymore. No, you're not a meth dealer, and no, your last name is not Lannister.

3) Turkey everything

For these next few days, it's turkey for every meal, because there's 27bs of it still to use in the fridge, and we can't have that going to waste. Who knew that you could make so many different recipes out of turkey? Sandwiches, soup, pie, curry, fricassee, nachos, cereal, pancakes, bread... the list is seemingly endless, just like the supply of turkey.

Pic via Andrew Nash/Flickr

4) Making New Year's resolutions in a sugar coma

As you pile in that fifth Flake from the selection box, you begin to think that you're invincible, and that 2014 was your year, you owned it. Then the sugar crash hits, and you fuse in to the couch in a position that can roughly be described as semi-horizontal, looking back on the multitude of small failures that defined the past 12 months.

Pic via vszybala./Flickr

You then decide that you're going to make all those New Year's resolutions that you'll never be able to keep. Giving up sugar and alcohol for the whole year and going to the gym three times a day is ambitious sure, but we're confident we can pull it off. We won't start today though, sure there's no point...

5) Deciding what to spend your vouchers on

In amongst your swag pile is sure to be at least one voucher for either a shopping centre or a one4all card, and now the decision making process begins. Should you go and get yourself that jacket that you've had your eye on, or is the voucher better spent on grocery shopping to ensure that you can eat for the majority of the days in January? Tough call...

6) The tins of sweets near their end

While some sweet tins are better than others, there are always at least a few tins of Roses, Quality Street and probably an aul box of After Eights lying around somewhere after Christmas Day. However, the days have passed and there have been a ridiculous number of people in and out of the house getting cups of tea with a few chocolates on the side, and now as you reach in to grab yourself a sweet all that's left are empty wrappers that were thrown back in to the box and maybe one of those ones that has the Brazil nut in it. Disaster.

Pic via Natalie/Flickr

7) Sales madness

It won't be long before the sales actually start on Christmas Day itself, but all the shops have now cleared out their stockrooms of the stuff that they couldn't shift for love nor money during the year and the crap they had left over from 2011, and people have gone in to a state of bizarre hysteria to get their hands on some of it. Stepping on necks, trampling innocent children underfoot like crisps under bison, this is truly what Christmas is all about, right?

8) Lose track of the days

All we know is that Christmas Day was two days ago and New Year's Day is taking place at some stage in the future. The days in between are of no consequence. Is today a Saturday? Really? We could have sworn it was Tuesday...