The Person You'll Become In January
On New Year's: the eve, the day, the concept.
A case for New Year’s
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a New Year’s Eve evangelist and apologist.
It’s my favorite holiday, second only to Halloween. Anyone who works in film or television loves Halloween in a way they believe is deeply personal and revealing, but is in fact wildly predictable: Costumes! Makeup! An opportunity to announce “this is my process” while wearing a wig! It’s practically a tax write-off. Showbiz, baby.
I say I love New Year’s the way one might admit to liking Benson Boone and his Utah backflips: defensively and with a well-organized list of reasons prepared in advance, just in case someone tries to take this away from me.
I love the universality of it. Everyone around the world celebrates New Year’s, regardless of culture, religion, or politics. You don’t have to believe in anything except the concept of time. I’ve been offline for a while but as far as I’m concerned, we’re all still in agreement on the concept of time. (We are still in agreement on the concept of time?...Right?)
You cannot say that of Christmas. You cannot say that of Easter. You absolutely cannot say that of Thanksgiving. My mother, a Ukrainian woman, purchased mahi mahi to serve as the main dish this year because conceptually, my parents still do not understand Thanksgiving and, if I’m honest, neither do I.
I also love how little New Year’s Eve demands of you. Dress up. Drink champagne. Count backwards. That’s it. That’s the whole thing.
Detractors of New Year’s (my enemies) will argue there’s too much pressure on New Year’s; that it never lives up to its potential, that it’s always a letdown. I’d argue that the only reason it feels like pressure is because New Year’s is concise. It doesn’t slowly overindulge in itself for weeks, bloated with landfill décor, songs I’d describe as “Kohl’s ambiance,” and compulsory whimsy. It doesn’t require high amounts of sugar intake or crafting with dangerous knives. There’s never that nagging feeling that you’re not quite doing enough to embrace the season because you haven’t interacted with a cranberry.
Contrary to popular belief, there really are no opportunities for procrastination so there should be no disappointment. You didn’t plan anything because nobody does. Christmas ate up all the emotional labor and decision fatigue. Make peace with your limits.
New Year’s begins when you start panicking about what to do at approximately 10:07 p.m. on December 30th, followed by a mall visit the next day, during which you purchase a flammable top you would never normally wear and absolutely should not wash. It ends at midnight in a garment with one sleeve.
That’s it. A tight 24-hour window. Clean. Elegant. No extended rollout or slow drip of guilt.
But my favorite thing about New Year’s is that it’s a holiday oriented toward the future.