In defence of New Year's Eve, the most unfairly maligned date on the calendar
The tone of life under lockdown was set for me early on when I heard an internet-famous songwriter sing: “Find the silver linings, as hard as it seems/An extrovert’s nightmare’s an introvert’s dream”. From that point onwards, I have been locked in a one-man culture war against homebodies, irrationally furious that someone, somewhere, might be enjoying having more time to spend curled up under the duvet with a peppermint tea and a page-turner, or whatever it is that introverts like to do.
This has come to a head in December, where everywhere I look I see people announcing their glib indifference to the fact that one of the best nights of the year, New Year’s Eve, has been cancelled. Apparently it’s rubbish anyway. The kind of people who value “PJs”, “going to bed early” and “snacks – literally all the snacks” have made no effort to disguise their glee. But these people are wrong: New Year’s Eve isn’t overrated at all; if anything, it’s unfairly maligned.
While offering little in the way of religious significance, the holiday functions as an important youth milestone. Like many people, New Year’s Eve provided me with my first forays into the world of adult excess, along with my first taste of adult repentance. The first time I ever got drunk, aged 11, it was at my friend Heather’s house, whose parents had a Hogmanay party each year. When I arrived, she was wearing a Tshirt that read “Barbie is a slut”, which her mum forced her to change out of before the guests arrived.
That night, we tore the labels off non-alcoholic beers and slapped them back on the real thing, allowing us to move through the party undetected. This ruse, rather than being strictly necessary, was part of the fun. There was the sense of undertaking an elaborate heist. We stole into the kitchen like cat burglars, one of us distracting someone’s mum with polite conversation while the other swiped a bottle.
Every New Year’s Eve from then on, we grew bolder. Our drinking normally took place in parks and forests but, come 31 December, we enjoyed doing it within close proximity to our parents. It represented a rare coming together of two different worlds; on New Year’s Eve, when our parents, flushed and tipsy themselves, saw that we were drunk, they would smile indulgently rather than shouting or demanding to smell our breath. As I got older and moved away, I started going to more untrammelled parties, and I would miss that combination of decadence and warm familiarity. Sometimes, while throwing up in a stranger’s bathroom, it would have been nice to have known my mum was downstairs, and not annoyed.
But New Year’s Eve is really about friends, not family. It’s a pressure release after the tensions of a domestic Christmas, a way of reasserting adulthood after the infantilisation of spending time with your family and slipping into historic roles. I like New Year’s Eve because I’m a sentimental, misty-eyed old fool and I believe in hope, in the possibility that things will get better. I like that it allows me to spend time with people who’ve been important in my life the year before and will continue to be so in the year to come. I like the excess, too. It’s a time when you can silence the nagging, prim, usually correct voice in your head whispering, “Is this a good idea?” when you pour another drink. It’s nice to be able to shut this up from time to time, even if this means spending the next fortnight recalling embarrassing things you said to strangers and softly whispering, “No …”
But anti-NYE sentiment runs deep. In the past week, there’s been a New Yorker essay calling for its abolition and a BBC news story about people who are happy they don’t have to celebrate it this year. The canonical text for the modern-day NYE-hater is an episode of Peep Showin which the protagonists, Mark and Jeremy, hop desperately from one terrible party to another. As Mark says, “All rational people agree: it’s a truth self-evident that it’s impossible to have a good time on New Year’s Eve.” People love citing this episode in support of their twisted opinions, but it’s worth noting that everyone else is having a good time apart from Mark and Jeremy, who fail to do so because they are despicable and maladjusted – if you watch this and think, “This is exactly what New Year’s Eve is like”, perhaps the problem lies closer to home.
I accept that being sad about not being able to get drunk with my friends is a relatively trivial complaint. It’s a sacrifice I’m happy to make, and choosing otherwise would be unambiguously selfish. But I can still regret it, and still think the anti-NYE brigade should wear their victory with a little more grace. Congratulations, introverts: you’ve won. I’ll stay at home this year, but my faith in New Year’s Eve remains devout.
• James Greig writes about culture and society, and is working on his first book