KEY POINTS:
While you are still groaning softly, attempting to recover from the effects of Christmas dinner, that nasty spot of sunburn and the sandpaper-like effect sand has when it is lodged in every crevice of your body, politics is probably not uppermost in your mind.
Indeed the best thing about the days between Christmas and New Year is that no one even thinks about politics. Well, apart from politicians whose minds never cease plotting - even as they are carving the ham they are probably imagining slicing their enemies across the House.
The good thing about the holiday season is that it can give you perspective on 2008.
The undoubted winner was John Key who brought the National Party back to power after nine years in exile. The acerbic wit of Dr Michael Cullen best summed up how it happened. In a slightly yucky analogy he likened the election to a change of underwear.
Although Cullen's metaphor leaves me with an awful vision of Labour as a pair of soiled Y-fronts and National as some freshly starched boxer shorts, he is right. People did it simply because it was time for a change.
National had figured out that public mood 12 months ago and accordingly it crept through the year on tip-toes, dribbling out only the sketchiest policies.
It's not clear if it had any detailed policies in the first place, other than the overwhelming desire to be back in government. Labour kept raving about National's hidden agenda but Nat's biggest secret was that it had no agenda.
That was a stroke of luck, really. If National did have a dark master plan locked away, ready to be unveiled after the election, it would have had to have been scrapped anyway because the world's economic conditions changed so swiftly.
We had slid so gently into recession that no one really noticed until we were struck by the tsunami of the global financial crisis. Whatever the merits or demerits of National, the lucky thing is we now have a fresh and hopefully invigorated Government in place to deal with the slump.
In 2008 it was obvious Labour was out of energy, out of ideas and, ultimately, out of office. In 2009 we have a new Government that is not restricted by its past. It can be adaptable and pragmatic because it is not bound by previous positions and stances it may have taken.
I have the horrible feeling that Labour, had it still been in government, would have cancelled the tax cuts and thrashed the exhausted middle class for more revenue while continuing to spend big on its pet policies and boosting the bureaucracy to cope the effects of a recession. That would be a sure recipe for disaster.
A year ago I complained in this column that Labour was a fair-weather government, that it was unimaginatively coasting along and God help us if times got tougher because I doubted it had the wit to deal with it.
There is no guarantee National will be any better but the change of government means there is at least the change of mindset. New governments can do new things.
It is going to be a tough year but the Government's speedier tax cuts, low interest rates, and a favourably valued Kiwi dollar will help keep us afloat while National's multi-billion dollar infra-structure plans will pump still more desperately needed cash into the economy and, hopefully, boost productivity.
Having made all the right pre-election noises about curbing wasteful government spending, National also can now tighten the bureaucracy's belt without being accused of pulling a stunt. Barring some further international cataclysm, we can weather the coming storm providing those in the Beehive don't panic.
If Key was a winner in 2008 then so, in her own way, was Helen Clark. She might have lost the election but her graceful quick exit deserves enormous respect.
One factor that gives me hope for the future is Key's apparent willingness to keep Clark's foreign affairs expertise at hand by perhaps finding her a diplomatic post. If he does, it will be not only an act of generosity but also a savvy move.
Just before Christmas I watched the final Close Up programme of the year. Throughout the show I could see Clark and Key nattering amicably in the back of the shot, behind Mark Sainsbury and Paul Holmes.
Only the nation's lip readers will know what they discussed but that display of maturity gave me confidence after a horrible year of political bickering. It was like watching Mum and Dad make up after a row.
Right now New Zealand needs to be a cosy family.
