Today is New Year's Eve. We are spending the day watching it snow - we are supposed to get up to 9 inches possibly, having a play date with the twins next door which went nicely, and then going to an open house at a neighbors' house. We will likely be home by 7pm because that will be when Cooper will begin his self destruct count down and need to go to bed. Since I seem constitutionally incapable of staying awake past 10pm, we will most likely not be celebrating the new year until we wake up the next morning. The Bob says he is going to try to get coffee in me all day in an effort to keep me awake, but then I will just be very tired, caffeinated and cranky.
And speaking of cranky, Cranky Fitness has a great post about New Years being annoying. I am not a big New Years' celebrant. I have never really understood the fascination with the new year, or at least the new year as celebrated on the standard Gregorian calendar, which was a reform of the Julien calendar which was terribly inaccurate. It seems a bit ridiculous to me that we get all hung up on the number of the year, when we only began counting on this particular calendar 2008 years ago. There is a WHOLE lot of history that happened before the implementation of this calendar.
I am not Chinese, but I prefer the Chinese calendar. First of all, it follows the lunar cycle. While it also was implemented after a lot of history had happened, it has been in use much longer. This year the Chinese New Year will begin on January 26th and it will be celebrating the year 4707. I also dig the Chinese zodiac - we will be going into the year of the Ox. I like that the celebration lasts two weeks, and ends with the Lantern Festival. I have a thing for lanterns. During the two weeks there are celebrations that are family oriented, food oriented, gift giving of items that are designed to bestow good luck. One tradition is for families to clean their houses to get rid of the bad luck and welcome good luck in. If nothing else, you might get your house cleaned out once a year.
I am not Jewish either, but I can get behind that calendar too - they are up to 5768 right now. The new year is celebrated usually in September or October. But this goes to my point - why do we get all hung up on this year vs. that year - cast your minds back to the whole millenium Y2K hullaballoo that came to NOTHING - when the number of the year we are in theory celebrating is so out of sync with the actual age of mankind?
All of this is to say that I don't mind that we don't have big plans to freeze our butts off (it is currently 19 degrees at 2pm in the afternoon and will only get colder) during First Night in Boston, and I don't do resolutions. I like to review and adjust things as they come up, not just once a year. If you want to do it once a year, it almost seems more appropriate to do it on your birthday - the day you entered the world, and the day that you advance another year in your life. It is truly a new year for each person on that day.
The one thing I will do tomorrow, besides have a friend over for dinner, is take the tree down. It is time. It has been lovely, but I am ready to reclaim that corner of the living room. We will also find out if we can live without the grey fencing we have been using to keep Cooper from touching the TV and electronics. The first time I see him near the TV with a crayon though, back it goes!
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