Happy New Year's...I guess.
Sorry, but I just don't understand all the hullabaloo about this holiday. Sure, the year changes. Writing the new year instead of the old year takes some getting used to. But other than that, besides accountants, who really cares about a new year coming into being?
I suppose New Year's gets short changed a bit. Unlike the other holidays, New Year's only has a week between it and Christmas, a mega-holiday if ever there was one. Christmas is so big that even those who we wouldn't think had any interest in it -- namely, Jews -- celebrate it (which I find odd, but no matter). All the other big holidays -- Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day and Thanksgiving -- have time around them that allow them to breathe, as it were. Not so New Year's.
Still, New Year's just seems like an invented holiday. Better yet, it gives people an excuse to blow off steam in the middle of the winter. After all, what are we celebrating? We're changing from one month to the next, something that we do eleven other times during the year. We change one digit in the year when we refer to it. Other than that, bupkes.
Yet, such a big hoary deal is made of the day. I just don't get it.
Here, then, are reasons New Year's Day just bores me:
Champagne: I hate champagne. I never acquired the taste for it, so I don't understand all the hoopla. Yet it's the holiday's staple, akin to what egg nog (another noxious potable) is to Christmas.
Countdowns: Everybody's got one. New York has the big apple, Atlanta the peach. Spaniards toss a grape into their mouths each of the last twelve seconds of the year before midnight to symbolize the last twelve months which, at least, is somewhat original. The only reason I can see for having a countdown is a rocket launch.
Crowds: People cram into Times Square or wherever, braving freezing temperatures, just to watch an automated apple descend on the side of a building. Many of these people would readily criticize football fans who go shirtless at playoff games. Come to think of it, I'm quite sure many of these same people are the ones who line up on Black Friday at the buttcrack of dawn outside Best Buy to get the best deals. I don't understand that activity either.
Dinner and Dancing: In and of themselves, dinner and dancing are fine. Even joined for a night out their fine. But paying exorbitant prices to do what one would for far less at virtually any other time of year is enervating. What's more, having to share this with a few dozens of my closest stranger as they tie one on, often at deafening decibels, isn't my idea of a good time.
Auld Lang Syne: I'm Irish, not Scottish. It's a quaint tradition, but given my antipathy to Scottish Presbyterianism and all that it's done to Ireland, I'll pass.
Parades: It seems that everyone has to have one on New Year's Day. The Rose Bowl, the Orange Bowl, the Cotton Bowl. Parades should be used on Memorial Day and Independence Day, only. They're martial in nature and I see no reason to dilute them with a meaningless holiday. Then there are the insincere network anchors who have to do play-by-play...for parades. Inane.
Bowl Games: I love college football. I don't enjoy watching middle-aged men running around in garishly loud colored suits pretending to be benefactors for this or whatever charity. It's like they belong to some secret society that is neither secret nor interesting. All that they are is grown-up frat boys anyway.
The Effect on Television: Television executives, thinking that everyone loves a bacchanalian ritual, don't put any good programming on television. Even cable television executives, who should know better, put crap on. It's like television takes a holiday itself and offers up the crappiest programming imaginable. Trained monkeys could pick out better shows to televise.
Food: Thankfully, I've only been subjected to this a handful of times, but on New Year's, everyone decides to get inventive. Let's put out that guacamole queso in the football shaped bowl. Everyone, try the haggis-inspired casserole! How about the tortilla bake with habanero chiles, roast beef, swiss cheese and truffles. Enough, already.
Ryan Seacrest: Dick Clark 2.0 seems like a nice enough guy, but he's branded by American Idol. Sorry. And while we're at it...
Networks Ringing in the New Year: Every station has to trot out its talent to behave like they're really enjoying this forced day of labor.
The Winter Classic: It had to happen that Gary Bettman couldn't stay away from this. Putting hockey games in baseball stadia is just stupid.
Enjoy the hangovers, everyone.
(c) 2015 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
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