The November Refusal List: Ten Things We Won’t Be Doing Before Spring

November is a month with a PR problem. The clocks have gone back, the last of the firework smoke has melted into drizzle, and Britain settles into its annual grey corridor between Halloween and the first mince pie. Everywhere you look, someone is telling you to embrace it. Buy a cinnamon candle. Go for a bracing walk. Start a journal. Huddle under a blanket with a seasonal coffee and a face like a damp spaniel. At Half Empty, our glass is not just half empty; it has been left on the radiator and we are not getting up to move it.

So here is the anti-bucket list: ten things we refuse to do before spring. Not because we are miserable — although, yes, partly because we are miserable — but because the pressure to be cosy, productive and relentlessly festive is exhausting. November needs fewer instructions and more soup.

1. We will not be ordering a pumpkin spice anything

Pumpkin spice is not a flavour. It is a marketing campaign with cinnamon in it. Every autumn, the coffee chains roll out the same brown liquid and pretend it is a personality. We are not falling for it. If we wanted to drink a candle, we would lick the scented one from the bathroom and save £4.50.

Instead: tea. Strong, builder’s, slightly stewed. Or a hot chocolate that does not come with a whisper about autumn leaves.

2. We will not go on a bracing walk

There is a particular British delusion that fresh air in November is character-building. It is not. It is cold, it is wet, and the view is mostly a dog waste bin and a lowered speed limit. Bracing is what you call it when your face hurts and you have lost feeling in your toes.

Instead: walk to the shop. Buy milk. Return. That counts. The rest of the day is for the duvet, which is doing important structural work holding your life together.

3. We will not start a gratitude journal

We are grateful for many things. We are grateful the clocks only change twice a year. We are grateful that the phrase “cosy season” has not yet been trademarked. But we are not grateful enough to write it down in a notebook with a fox on the cover and a ribbon marker.

Instead: complain out loud. It is cheaper, it requires no stationery, and it gives other people permission to join in. Gratitude is fine; forced gratitude is a group project nobody asked for.

4. We will not watch the Christmas adverts early

Every year, the festive adverts arrive earlier, like a distant relative who thinks the party starts at noon. By mid-November, television is already full of slow-motion snow, tinkly pianos and a child looking meaningful at a bauble. We are not ready. We may never be ready.

Instead: watch something with a body count. A detective drama. A documentary about a doomed expedition. Anything where the emotional climax involves a spreadsheet and a stern woman from HR.

5. We will not re-decorate the flat in the name of hygge

Hygge is Danish for “please buy a throw”. We already have a throw. It is slightly pilled and covered in cat hair, and it is doing a magnificent job. We do not need a new one in oatmeal, plus a diffuser, plus a wooden bowl of pinecones that will be quietly binned in January.

Instead: sit under the existing throw. Eat a baked potato. Look at the wall. The wall has no side hustle and no expectations.

6. We will not buy a SAD lamp and pretend it is a productivity tool

A SAD lamp is a light. A very bright light. It is not a substitute for the sun, and it is certainly not a licence to schedule 6am workouts. We are not turning seasonal affective disorder into a morning routine.

Instead: acknowledge the darkness. Go to bed at 9pm. Read four pages of a book and fall asleep with your glasses on. This is not failure; it is November.

7. We will not organise the office Secret Santa

There is always one person who volunteers, and it is never us. The Secret Santa is a hostage negotiation with tinsel. Someone will buy a mug. Someone will buy prosecco. Someone will buy a novelty tie and then act surprised when nobody laughs.

Instead: put £5 in a card. Sign it with your initials only. Leave before the group photo.

8. We will not sign up for a January gym membership in November

The gyms know what they are doing. They dangle a discounted membership in front of you while you are still digesting a Sunday roast and feeling vaguely guilty about the word “bracing”. You will go twice. Once in November, once in February, and then you will pay £29 a month until 2029 for the privilege of feeling bad near a treadmill.

Instead: walk up the stairs. Carry the shopping. Do one lunge, privately, in your kitchen, and never speak of it again.

9. We will not host a festive planning meeting

This is not a corporation. It is a house. We do not need an agenda, a shared spreadsheet and a colour-coded timetable for when the tree goes up. The tree goes up when someone finds the box and can be bothered. The fairy lights will be tangled. That is tradition.

Instead: open a tin of Quality Street, eat the orange ones first, and let the rest of the plan look after itself.

10. We will not pretend November is a time of renewal

It is not. It is a time of dark afternoons, wet leaves and a strange national urge to buy cushions. Renewal is for spring, or at least for a Tuesday in March when the light comes back and you remember what your garden looks like.

Instead: survive. Make soup. Watch rubbish telly. Cancel one thing a week and feel the space open up. The most honest thing you can do in November is admit that you are not thriving, you are enduring — and that is allowed. Spring will arrive eventually. Until then, the duvet has the floor.