How to make January not suck

There’s a near-endless amount of tiring discourse surrounding January — whether it’s really the worst month, if resolutions are good or bad, the Dry January of it all, blah blah blah — but rarely mentioned in any of this is the pursuit of actual fun. Well this week Team Groove is here to say: whatever happened to fun?

With the hubbub of the holidays behind us, you could view the next month as the depressing January doldrums. But you could also view it as prime time to take advantage of the city, now that the tourists have cleared out and so has your calendar. Below, Team Groove’s personal recommendations for making the most of your New York City January instead of just dreading it:

Hit the ‘winter beach’

If I’m being fully honest, I’m loathe to recommend this one, because over the past few years the word has decisively gotten out about the city’s Russian baths, making them overrun with swarms of TikTokker types. Selfishly, I’d like fewer people to get into the banya, not more new converts. But hitting the saunas at places like Mermaid Spa, Spa 88 or the Russian & Turkish Baths is reliably one of the best things one can do during the winter months (I like to call it “winter beach”).

It’s warming, obviously, cathartic without feeling punitive after months of holiday excess, and their in-house restaurants come with the promise of rib-sticking post-schvitz Russian food options like mushroom barley soup or a big bowl of pelmeni, stuff that is quite literally designed to comfort and shore your body up for the winter.

-Virginia

Jump in the ocean at the actual beach 

The simple answer to overcoming the winter doldrums is the same answer to most other things in life, from hangovers to heartbreak: jump in the ocean. A polar plunge famously happens every New Year's Day in Coney Island but like all resolutions, real commitment means doing it all winter long, not just on the first day of the year. 

Groups of goose-fleshed plungers gather all winter long, some daily, to shock their winter brains and slap their January bodies with nature's ice bath. Cold plunges are all the rage right now but instead of spending $5,000 on a backyard plunge pool, or even dropping a few dozen bucks on a banya entry, I am here to remind you that the ocean is free and always open. 

If this sounds like borderline torture for your visions of cozy, bedded-down dark months, do not scroll past this just yet: I was once like you and I have become a believer. Readers of the site will know already that I’m a summer guy, so I used to spend all my winter months counting down the days until the return of warmth, and watching a DVD copy of Blue Crush over and over again. Then the pandemic happened and like many things, it forced some personal changes in me, namely to consider that the outdoors might be a thing you can embrace in other seasons as well, as it turns out there were only so many episodes of Mad Men to watch. 

In winter 2020, we learned some friends in the Rockaways had started meeting weekly to plunge in the ocean and then warm up by a beach bonfire, so we decided to join, an effort to find something to do in the cold landscape of pandemic winter. My first dip was tepid; by the next week we were running full speed into the ocean. Entering the cold ocean feels like defeating the final boss of winter, ripping it out into the light and no longer hiding it behind a summer countdown. The beach, after all, is for all seasons. I started to crave the numb feeling in my legs, I started to long for the smell of saltwater hair under a winter hat. 

Some people will tell you being enveloped in cold shocks your immune system and is good for your overall health, and I don’t know the science of all that nor will I look it up because it doesn’t matter: it feels good, it feels like an accomplishment and it reminds you that the ocean is one of our city’s greatest free resources. 

Make sure to bring big towels, warm blankets and loose clothing to quickly wrap yourself in, and pack a thermos full of something warm to drink. If you happen to be making a (technically illegal!) beach bonfire, old Christmas trees make good kindling FYI.

Try a 2pm Sunday winter swim in Rockaway Beach with Sea Changes, any day with the New York Dippers Club or get on the train and plunge in any beach at any time.

-Tim

See Broadway for cheap(er)

I always wind up seeing Broadway shows in January and February, for the simple reason that whenever I looked for tickets months before, that’s when I could find the cheapest ones. Turns out this is a thing; after the peak fall and holiday tourist seasons, ticket prices for Broadway generally go down for the first months of the year. The city also offers “Broadway Week” deals during this time, with two-for-one tickets for certain shows going on sale on Jan. 7. Browse your options and get yourself to that show you keep hearing about and meaning to see (for me this year it was a $77 ticket to see Audra McDonald in Gypsy, and I can’t wait).

-Virginia

Take yourself out to breakfast 

The sun is already setting later every day already and that’s nothing to take for granted. But 6pm sunsets don’t return until March, so we all must find a way to cope with the winter darkness a little longer so we don’t become dark on the inside as well. One way I fight daylight related depression during this time is to make sure to get up and take myself out to breakfast on a weekday every so often. 

If you’re used to the work-from-home slog, with a French press in one hand and dry toast in the other, this can feel like a treat of the highest magnitude, a luxury reserved for the idle rich or retirees who live in rent-controlled apartments. But no! You can do it too: maybe it’s a seat at diner over steaming hot coffee, maybe it’s just a jaunt to the coffee shop or maybe it’s a deli sandwich and a bench in the park, but getting out of the house first thing in the morning will make you feel like there’s so much more daylight than you thought, and encourage a more mindful start to your day than just opening up the screaming terror machine of the internet and diving in. While you’re there, try reading a book or newspaper instead of your phone, and you’ll dabble in the lifestyle those rent-controlled retirees seem to enjoy. 

And, in this economy? A breakfast out is guaranteed to be cheaper than a dinner date. 

-Tim

Staycation, all I ever wanted 

I have a soft spot for tourists. I love that people dream and save and plan so much to visit this city and I like to take on that perspective every once in a while. So why not act like one? 

When I get sick of being in my own apartment and it’s too cold to be outside, I love to do a January staycation. All of January is NYC Hotel Week with deals across the city on cheap stays. Even without the deals, hotels are cheaper because no one’s around: Tourism is lighter this month after the holiday peak. This season also overlaps with Restaurant Week (which should be called Hotel Month) and the aforementioned Broadway Week.

If art is more your thing, museums are the best in the winter. They keep you warm and get you cultured. Exhibits often switch over in January, so it’s a great time to catch something before it closes, or see something new before it shows up on Instagram.

I love shedding off my layers at coat check, it feels like such a luxury to not have to worry about all that for an hour or two. When I don’t want to commit to that process, I like bopping around gallery openings in Chelsea. The free booze keeps you warm, you’ll get outerwear inspo from your fellow art hoes, and all that color is good for your eyes during a dreary winter. January: perfect for dinner, a show and a staycation. 

-Jess

Get on the Knicks bandwagon

Okay so this is something you can do without leaving your home, which is possibly not the point right now. But sometimes it will simply be polar vortex out and you can definitely use this as an excuse to head to the bar. And even if you do this from home you are still psychically tapping into a piece of the city’s collective energy. Anyway, the Knicks! Despite shipping out a couple important pieces of last year’s fun and energetic squad, the Knicks are still massively talented and still led by extremely fun and unexpected franchise cornerstone Jalen Brunson. The NBA’s regular season can be a bit of a slog, but January is a good time to tap in if you haven’t been paying attention, because the team is starting to gel right now and really showing how good they can be. 

Joining Brunson this year is Karl-Anthony Towns, a seven-foot tall superstar behemoth who’s agile near the basket and a deadly shooter from three-point range. Bruson and Towns are surrounded by energetic playmakers in the returning Josh Hart and OG Anunoby and newcomer Mikal Bridges, a core that at their best really makes you believe the team can win its first championship since 1973. 

Watch at the bar, watch at home, get out and splurge on a single game at MSG (can you afford to go to more than one Knicks game? Become an Ace today!); however you get into the Knicks, consider it training for their warm-weather playoff run you’re going to want to be part of.

-Dave