Those of you with a real keen sense of what's going on -- the people with their fingers on the pulse of what's happening -- may be aware that it's the holiday season.

I class "the holiday season" as the time period between Thanksgiving and the Epiphany. The Epiphany is Jan. 6 and marks the final day of those 12 days of Christmas that people are always trying to sing about -- most of us tend to get lost around the seventh day: "seven guys doing something, six boxes of cookies..."

In Spain, the Epiphany, also known as the Day of Three Kings, is when all the kids receive their presents. This is rather brilliant on Spain's part, because it allows them to capitalize on all the after-Christmas sales.

Of course, the most important holiday to occur during the holiday season is the Festival for the Souls of Dead Whales, the self-explanatory Inuit holiday that took place on Dec. 10. This year's festival was tainted in controversy, however, after a conservative Inuit talk show host started a campaign against businesses that failed to incorporate the phrase "Happy Festival for the Souls of Dead Whales" into their advertising.

Again, those of you with a real keen sense of what's going on may know that two other holidays that occur in this season are Christmas and Chanukah. Or, Chanukah and Christmas, depending on who you are. In America's current cultural climate I am almost sure to receive hate mail for saying this, but the themes of these two holidays are equally invaluable.

One of the themes of Christmas is newness. For example, I find myself these days with a new, larger belly.

One of the themes of Chanukah is resilience. For example, I achieved my new belly thanks to resilience in forcing holiday cookies down my gullet even when I was full.

The theme of newness will be reinforced this weekend, when the year ends.

At this time of year, I find myself thinking about a song that I used to listen to when I was younger. In it, the singer shouts, "Now is the time to do whatever you want and it will still turn out great."

There are caveats to that statement, obviously. The guy who sang it was kicked out of the band for drug abuse and has since faded into total obscurity. But I still like the sentiment.

Every time New Year's rolls around, some part of me gets excited and thinks: "This is the year! This is the year when I do everything right! I will become wealthy and famous and beautiful women will swoon and faint when I walk into the room and nothing bad will ever happen to me again -- all because I have made a New Year's resolution to not eat cupcakes at work."

For most of us, New Year's resolutions will be broken long before Spanish boys and girls are opening their presents. This is where the theme of resilience comes in.

Humans are prone to failure. If a person makes a New Year's resolution to lose weight or quit smoking or stop watching so much bad television, inevitably they will find themselves sneaking a cupcake at work or bumming a cigarette from a friend or sitting through an entire episode of the sitcom "Reba."

The easy thing to do in that situation would be to give up. Many people do. They tell themselves that they simply don't have it in them to fulfill their resolution; they set themselves up for more disappointment by waiting for their birthday or an anniversary or some other milestone at which to start anew.

Resilience helps a person to not abandon his or her goals. Resilience accepts that some dark and troubled part of you thinks Reba McEntire is sexy.

The people who are resilient are able to pick up from failures and still push forward. Resilience helps them to turn something that is new into something that is lasting.

These two holiday themes go well together, I think, regardless of the holiday being celebrated (Dec. 30 is National Bicarbonate of Soda Day). And although the holiday season is almost over, I wish you newness and resilience for the rest of the year.

Happy holidays.

Chris Cope is married, with no children. His column appears every other Tuesday.