New Year’s is the worst holiday of the year
Let’s face the cold, hard truth: New Year’s is the worst holiday of the year. It’s pathetic. We should stop celebrating it.
Let’s look at the facts.
Does New Year’s have an iconic moment? No. All it has is a lame countdown to midnight on New Year’s Eve. That’s it. A bunch of people counting backwards from 10. There is also the hoary old tradition to kiss whomever you are standing next to at the stroke of midnight. This can be okay if you know the person getting a lip-lock. If not and you just start kissing anyone you can find to “celebrate,” you could start the New Year with a punch in the nose or a sexual harassment lawsuit.
Then there is that sketchy old chestnut: The New Year’s Eve party. Sad. People get dressed up, stand around for hours trying not to drink too much while making lame chit-chat, then do the dreaded countdown and toast the New Year with beer, booze or champagne. Then comes the kissing catastrophe. Then they venture into a cold, dark winter night to go home and hope and pray they don’t get a DUI to kick off the New Year. This same shindig could happen on any given Tuesday on any week of the year.
How about the symbols of the season? Christmas, of course, has Santa, reindeer, Christmas trees, on and on and on. Thanksgiving has turkey dinner, bad NFL football, pumpkin pie, etc. July Fourth has fireworks, flags, founding fathers, parades and on and on.
New Year’s? For the year just ending we have a wizened old geezer with a long white beard holding a dying lamp while wearing some bizarre dress/cloak thing, apparently to hide the Depends the old dude is wearing. His counterpart representing the New Year is a squalling little baby in a diaper. Cute. Until you think about the little brat’s fate, which is to magically turn into a crotchety old geezer staring into his grave after a mere 12 months. Magical.
Then there is the self-flagellation called New Year’s Resolutions. This is a horrid tradition unique to New Year’s. Resolutions basically force people to say, “all last year I was a fat, lazy loser not living up to my potential and basically throwing my entire life into a burning trash can. So this year I resolve to change all that and be healthy, wonderful, caring, hard-working person who is living my best life.” In short, “my life sucks, I suck and I need to change everything.”
That’s something to really look forward to, right?
The other glaring problem with New Year’s is simply timing. December is jam packed with holiday stress. You have to shop for presents for family members (even the ones you don’t like). You have to politely put up with lame work-related Christmas shenanigans, ranging from getting everyone a nice Christmas card (even the ones you can’t stand, which might even be the boss), to faking having fun at the office Christmas party. Then there are ugly sweater contests, Christmas lighting contests, visits to Santa. Then you have to cook up a huge turkey and sad side dishes ranging from Brussels sprouts to Jell-O salad.
Even more terrifying are the holiday visits from all the kids, their spouses/partners and their kids, plus a few crabby inlaws, some stray cousins and a creepy uncle or drunk aunt. Once you get through all that, Christmas morning is great. But that’s it. That is the end of the holiday season. End of story.
The rest of the month consists of simply surviving a grueling holding pattern. The kids are out of school and underfoot and eating everything in sight while breaking or complaining about their Christmas presents. Work is a laugh, with people coming in late, doing nothing then leaving early. It’s a COVID lockdown without the COVID. Same for the food. Cold cereal, frozen pizzas, take-out, canned soup and ramen, boxes of macaroni and cheese, frozen dinners, candy bars and cookies. No one even has the gumption or energy to make a grilled cheese sandwich.
And what’s the payoff ? What is the big, joyous signal that the holidays are over, that kids will once again be locked up in school, work will once again be routinely boring, the extended family is once again far enough away to earn the title “extended family,” and the refrigerator is once again stocked with real food?
Standing around and counting backwards from 10 and trying to avoid getting a creepy kiss.
OPINION
(Jon Klusmire of Bishop is looking forward to some better January holidays, such as: National Winter Skin Relief Day, Jan. 8; National Hot Pastrami Sandwich Day, Jan. 14; National Winnie the Pooh Day, Jan 18; National Mariachi Day, Jan 21; National Fish Taco Day, Jan 25; National Chocolate Cake Day; Jan. 27; and my favorite, National Curmudgeons Day, Jan. 29.)