I am a new years Scrooge and I ascribe to the tenet:
If I could work my will every idiot who goes about with "Happy New Year" on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stem of a martini glass through his heart.
Historically New Years to me was never anything to celebrate. The end of the holidays, a return to poopy old school, crappy old work, and at times both...sailing off into January's dreary gloom with nothing but a heavy heart and despair for another period of time off. Well retirement for most part has abated that bitterness, but like the end of August when I hear the cicadas drone in the trees, I still get a bile of back to school pervading my thoughts. I am indeed a New Years Scrooge.
Then there always Guy Lombardo's Auld Lang Syne. Good grief was there ever a piece of music so hideous?
Yet as I get older, I must admit a certain weakening of my Scrooginess. I perceive that beyond the excuse to go get drunk, a habit I gave up when I started going with my wife, and the stupid party hats, kazzoos, and glasses frames depicting the new year, there is a common thread of hope. Quite possibly vain hope, but hope none the less. We are pretty much helpless to the winds of fate, so can we be blamed if for one day a year we throw caution to those winds, and say damn the torpedoes full speed ahead?
If nothing else I have found a better rendition of Auld Lang Syne:
Alas, having not been visited by the ghosts of New Years Past, Present, or Future, I am still inclined to say New Years, Bah Humbug! So to avoid my own curse I shall wish you and your's a
Most Merry New Years!
I can count on my fingers the number of times I stayed up long enough to toast in a new year and, frankly, I really don't anticipate much out of the coming year worthy of a toast. Had 2016 not been such crap I would wish for time to stand still.
ReplyDeleteSpoken like a true Yankee curmudgeon! You make me proud to be a crank! Alas I fear that 2017 will make 2016 look like the wonder years.
DeleteThanks for stopping by and commenting, Olga.
Merry Happy New Year! Like Olga it's been years since I stayed up to welcome in the New Year. New Year has always been bittersweet for me since that was the night that I became engaged. You know the story of that marriage so it doubles the reason I don't want to stay up and welcome the new year. But there is always hope, I'm the eternal optimist and just like bad/sad things, there will be good/happy things to come!
ReplyDeleteAlicia, indeed I understand your distaste for New Years, in light of what happened later, far more bitter than sweet. My grumping about having to go back to school and work pales in comparison.
DeleteHope is a good thing. Little hard to muster these days, and I tend to take the pessimistic view...if you are right, at least you get the satisfaction of knowing you were right, and if you are wrong, who cares! But pessimism is corrosive to the Soul, so I admire your continued optimism.
Thanks for visiting and commenting. May you and your family have a Most Merry New Year.