What does a New Year mean to you? Is it an important occasion or just a date? Do you see the point of celebrating it? Is it a new beginning, a day as usual, a nice holiday, or simply some free time to enjoy with your family and/or friends? Do you go to a party or do you stay at home watching tv? Do you make New Year's resolutions? Do you really intend to keep them?
Here are some quotes I chosen for this topic:
Youth is when you're allowed to stay up late on New Year's Eve. Middle age is when you're forced to. ~Bill Vaughn
Many people look forward to the new year for a new start on old habits. ~Author Unknown
New Year's Day is every man's birthday. ~Charles Lamb
Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.Benjamin Franklin
New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions. ~Mark Twain
I would love to know your opinion - do share!
I simply enjoy having the day off.
ReplyDeleteI stopped making resolutions years ago. I don't like the forced gaiety. September , when everyone goes back to school, feels like the new year to me.
ReplyDeleteI don't make resolutions either because the middle of the winter simply seems the most wrong time of the year for them. A day off nothing else - that's the closest to my feelings too. Ah, and time to buy a new calendar to hang in my room. ;)
ReplyDeleteI never keep them anyway ;)
ReplyDeleteMy resolutions to be posted tomorrow. ;)
ReplyDeleteLove the quotes!
Melissa be sure I will visit and find out!
ReplyDeleteBlodeuedd neither do I!
To provide another quote - New Year is the triumph of Hope over Experience, for a short while, anyway. (I think Benjamin Franklin wins the Incurable Optimist award, but if you can't be optimistic at New Year, when can you be?)
ReplyDeleteI think New Year is a psychologically-good time to try for a fresh start, an attempt at changing the direction of your life, a time to take stock, maybe - something to think about once all of the glitter and partying of December fades away, and we're back into boring grey wintery days. Back to school time in September could be a good time, but I find it's too busy - after six weeks of no school, it's the hectic round of making sure the kids have got the correct uniform/ ferrying them to after school clubs/sleepovers/ checking they've done their homework etc.
I've always liked New Year, though it always feels a week too late - those days just after Christmas I always have to remind myself that we're still in the old year. We always go to a friends' house party, though until this year I always had to leave not long after Midnight to go back to work (security checks, fire checks etc.) This year we could both relax, and not worry about having to start work at 8am the next morning - bliss (almost felt like a teenager again :) ).
I am glad you had a nice beginning of the year, Tracy and thanks for a nice quote. I prefer my year to start in spring, though. 1 January always seemed a bit spurious to me and I could never think of any good reason for a fresh start. In spring, that's another matter.
ReplyDeleteI love Springtime, but again for the past twenty-one years, the beginning of Spring meant being hauled to the top of the rollercoaster that is working in the tourism industry. The sun comes out and the rollercoaster begins it's breakneck descent, no time to really think about anything other than work (or desperately trying to distract myself from thinking about work). Not any more - maybe after a couple of years with a 'normal' workpattern, I too will think Spring is a good time to change my life, but at the moment I'm just getting used to the idea that I can theoretically take time off in May or June, or even over Easter if I want to.
ReplyDeleteat the moment I'm just getting used to the idea that I can theoretically take time off in May or June, or even over Easter if I want to.
ReplyDeleteWell enjoy your spring then! It is good you are finally out of the rollercoaster and can live at your own pace.
Thanks Anachronist - though the snow is back, so no Spring for a while! Here we go again, yawn (it's amazing how quickly you can get bored of it)
ReplyDeleteBut back to the best date for New Year - I still think 1st January is a good time - everyone has just finished celebrating the Winter Solstice (what, you thought you were celebrating Christmas?) which is when the natural changeover occurs, from days getting shorter to the sun putting in an ever longer appearance, in the Northern hemisphere, anyway. It's the end of one natural year, the beginning of the next - maybe I should be a pagan.
I beg to differ here. If you were a pagan there are chances you would celebrate the New Year in spring.
ReplyDeleteBabylonian New Year began with the first New Moon after the Vernal Equinox and imagine that: ancient celebrations lasted for eleven days!!! They would have killed me for sure! Also the Iranian New Year, called Nowruz, and pagan Slavonic New Year is the day containing the exact moment of the vernal equinox, which usually occurs on 20 or 21 March.
OK, I stand corrected :)
ReplyDeleteEleven days of celebrations, I could go with that! (But definitely no champagne)