New Year, New You?

It’s that time of year again — the first few days of January, otherwise known as the grimmest, greyest and dreariest of months. Christmas is behind us, back-to-work looms, current events continue to implode.

All in all, it’s an excellent moment in which to make big brave plans to change oneself, then the world.

Motivation, however, can be hard to come by. That’s where puppets come in.

As children, puppets help us learn the alphabet and numbers, to conjugate verbs and practise kindness and tolerance. Surely these fuzzy buddies can help navigate the intricacies and complexities of adult life as well.

So read on, McDuff, for a gentle puppet-y primer on taking on the coming year with googly-eyed intensity.

Take a brave first step by committing to real change

If you’ve been making the same basic resolutions to get fit, lose weight and eat better, that’s fine. All commendable stuff. Whether these resolutions last more than a week is the bigger question. Here is where puppets can help you.

If some small bit of fake fur and felt can do it, you can do it too. Commit to making real, infrastructural, systems-wide change that starts with the very fibre of your being.

I’m not talking getting bangs or a trying a new kind of cuisine. In consideration of the high-stakes nature of current affairs right now, I encourage you to think about how you might introduce more seismic change into your life. Consider actions that shake you to the core and open up new directions in your life, new avenues for adventure.

In the parlance of puppetry, let 2026 be the year in which you pull out your stuffing and take a brave, liberated step into the unknown.

This may be scary. And that’s the point!

Change can be scary. It’s useful to remind ourselves that it is necessary for growth. In order to expand up and out, you must let go of the things holding you back. You’re no topiary, stuck in a pot and trimmed into subservience and supplication. You’re a mighty redwood! So act like a giant sexy tree: quit your job, climb that mountain, embrace polyamory.

Do the thing that scares you the most, then do another one.

Soon you shall become the puppet master, eater of worlds, changer of destiny, a fiery comet streaking across the night sky, because puppets don’t wear pants. Freedom is its own reward.

Embrace your new life

In your newly liberated state, it’s useful to look for community and like-minded folk. They shouldn’t be too hard to find. Maybe they’re hiding in the bushes or wandering around Wreck Beach, the official site of the no-pants community.

Wherever you find your fellow fuzzies is fine. Collective action is the name of the game here. Speaking of games, a new activity can be just the ticket to finding a new group of hairy weirdos to hang with, be it yoga, a cooking class, pickleball or ski jumping.

If you don’t die in a fiery pickleball accident or get hung up in a tree, you can learn new skills and make strange new friends.

Resolve to revolt

The hardest work is behind you now; you have a community and the new ability to a hit a pickle with a paddle, so it’s time to change society.

There are many ways to effect change. One of them is through the art of protest. Make a sign, get a clipboard, apply for all the necessary permits, dress appropriately (no pants, but make sure to bring goggles and a gas mask) and go to town. I mean really, even if you live in the middle of nowhere, you’ll need a street to go marching right down the middle of, because making a big noise is a key element of any action.

If a tree falls in the forest, but there’s no one there to howl about the evils of clear-cut logging, what are we even doing people, I mean puppets? ‘Tis not just the time for resolutions, but revolution!

The final transformation

The biggest hurdle to real change, well, one of them anyway, is the notion that society is hidebound, and we’re doomed to keep doing things the way we’ve always done them. But that’s simply not true.

Most of daily life is something we’ve all simply agreed to. But we can agree to do things differently.

In this, I often think of anthropologist and author David Graeber’s famous dictum: “The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make and could just as easily make differently.”

If nothing else, puppets can remind us that we’re endlessly malleable, changeable creatures made from the same cosmic building blocks as elephants, quasars, ducks, pickleballs, giant squid and Timothée Chalamet. The universe is a big place containing vastness so inconceivable that our wee brains struggle to perceive even the smallest, raggedy edge of it; the earth and all its inhabitants form just a speck of sand on a beach of infinite scale.

As we move into 2026, don’t forget you are made of real stardust. And let this be a year when we all take a step towards remaking this world for the better. We may just be tiny specks in the universe, but even the smallest creatures are capable of affecting change on a large scale. Take it from Elmo, Grover and Flat Eric. Shine on, you crazy space diamonds!

Happy holidays, readers. Our comment threads will be closed until Jan. 5 to give our moderators a much-deserved break. See you in 2026!