Time to start anew

There's a lot of other stuff, but the heck with it. It can wait until tomorrow. It is, after all, New Year's Eve.

No, I'm not going to do one of those retrospectives and I'm not going to spend a few paragraphs getting philosophical. I do enough of that as it is. I do have to admit that I wonder where I will be a year from now: It occurred to me over the holidays that I've spent each of the last four in a different place. And while some stability would be nice, I don't know that it's coming. "The only thing that doesn't change is the fact that everything else changes."

No matter. What I wanted to mention is that January 1, a completely random time to start a new year (in Europe, until the latter part of the 1500s it was common to start the new year in late March with the arrival of spring, which makes as much sense as January 1 does), stands as a symbol of the idea of starting anew.

Sometimes, that's not such an easy symbol, as the Seattle Times noted on Thursday.

Let's face it, New Year's Eve is practically a festival of pressure.

Pressure to choose a memorable way to enjoy the evening. Pressure to spend that evening in a gown or tux, with someone special. Pressure building up to midnight, and that perfect kiss at that magical hour - which, of course, inaugurates the pressure of all those many resolutions.

"It's a sad holiday. It never really delivers," said Brian Battjer, a New Yorker who speaks for everyone who winces at that inevitable question, "What are you doing for New Year's?"

A Gallup Poll taken Nov. 19-21 quantifies the angst. The organization asked 1,015 adults to pick their favorite holiday: 63 percent chose Christmas, 27 percent selected Thanksgiving, a mere 9 percent said New Year's. (The remaining 1 percent had no opinion.) ...

Many Americans want ... an evening of quiet contemplation. Although tens of thousands turn out for raucous celebrations - an estimated 500,000 annually in Times Square alone - most opt to spend the night at home.

That's what a survey by Domino's Pizza has revealed for the past two years.

Last year at this time, Domino's and Impulse Research queried 1,232 persons on their New Year's Eve plans. Sixty-seven percent said they planned to stay home. And while 31 percent had planned to go out to party the previous year, only 28 percent actually did. ...

"New Year's. I hate it," [Battjer] said.

But like the man said, it's just another New Year's Eve. And I'm spending it at home. With my wife, our dog and cats (and the visiting guest dog), and our first real Christmas tree, watching "Holiday Inn" (being appalled at the "Abraham" scene and thinking that despite our frequent pessimism, we have come a distance) - and contemplating renewal.

Happy New Year. Let's make it the best.