I can understand how you feel about September. I found the switch from a calendar school year (as in the southern hemisphere) to a September-August arrangement really weird, because that gave me two year ends, two new beginnings, two occasions to wonder whether I should be buying gifts for teachers.

In September, my older son starts his GCSEs and my younger one starts high school (Year 8). It's also the month of my younger son's 13th birthday, another milestone. Definitely a red-letter month!

And with the way Christmas stretches further back each year (as far as retailers are concerned, anyway), it seems to collapse the last quarter of the year into a nothingness between one new beginning and another. I feel as if my years have lost a chunk. After 7 years, I still can't get used to it.