I like Champagne. I like balloons. I like glitter. I like parties. With all of that, it seems like I would really like New Year’s Eve. However, despite all the glitter-balloon decorated parties where Champagne flows like water I have never been able to enjoy New Year’s Eve. A meme making its way through Facebook and other social media this year has finally convinced me that I may not be a lonely Grinch about New Year’s Eve, but part of a minority finally willing to come forward. For my people, People-Against New-Year’s-Eve-Celebrations-That-Make-No-Damn-Sense, I have written the following. This is a very personal document and cannot speak for our movement. Nevertheless, I offer it up to you here as a starting point for understanding our objections to NYE.
(1) Keep your balls away from me.
September 11th, 2001 had a huge impact on my life. If you’re reading this it probably had a huge impact on yours. When billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg decides to run for president of the United States that will also have a large impact on my life. Outside of those two events, the day-to-day goings of New York City, up to and including the holiday celebrations, have no bearing on my life. I refuse to organize my holiday around a ball in a different time zone. Please keep your ball, its dropping, and all ball-themed events away from my New Year.
(2) Cover, cover everywhere.
Why, the last Sunday/Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday/Friday/or in this case Saturday of December do I suddenly have to pay (a) four times normal cover charges or (b) pay cover at bars that usually don’t have cover? I didn’t get a Christmas bonus, and even if I did I wouldn’t want to waste it paying money to go to a place I could usually get into for free. Thank you very much, but I can drink at home until your prices have gone down again, local bars.
(3) I refuse to set myself up for disappointment.
After NYE comes New Year’s Day, the day we are all supposed to make resolutions to have a better year than last year. Here’s something I know about myself: if I am ready to make a change in my life I will make that change immediately. Picking a mostly arbitrary date to set off massive changes, all at once, at the beginning of the worst season of the year seems like a road to self-berating sadness. I usually travel that road on Tuesday. I don’t need a holiday to give me an extra opportunity to go there.
(4) Why is this even a holiday?
This is the one that has plagued me my entire life. NYE and New Year’s Day seem like made-up, arbitrary holidays floating in the midst of real holidays. Amidst the Winter Solstice, Christmas, Kwanza, Chanukah and the Day of Epiphany, NYE and New Year’s Day seem like islands of collective lunacy in a sea of meaningful tradition. Seriously, six times out of seven the great transition between the old year and the new doesn’t even leave me in another week, let alone another, better state of mind. I don’t know about you, but all my bills for December are due in the middle of January. Until and unless we get rid of that inconvenient little fact I refuse to believe that the New Year has brought me significant changes and left me better off.
