Tag New Year

Be It Resolved

Michael 6 Comments

Today is January 2, the day resolutions die.  It might be more effective to make annual New Year’s Indecisions.  January 2.  It used to be the start of white sales.  Then they got pushed deeper into January and we’re not terribly sure anybody even still has white sales as we once knew them.  So even that inauspicious occasion has deserted the second day of the year.  Deserted it, just like all those resolutions. 

And why shouldn’t’ they.  Be real people, January is a terrible time to start a new year.  There is no astronomical occurrence that coincides with it.  There is no historical or pre-historical event that occurs with it.  It’s only claim is that it falls a week after Christmas and with most workers getting a couple days off for each of the holidays, if one was so inclined one can manage to take a whole week off without burning a whole week’s worth of vacation days. 

Yes, the only thing New Year’s Day is really known for is for continuing the stress of the holiday period.  We’re already overwhelmed with traditional foods and customs of one holiday and now we’re tossing in a whole different set of superstitions and menu restrictions to heighten our anxiety. What can we eat?  What can’t we eat?  Is the first person through the door carrying the right kind of bread with him?  Is the first person through the door a him?  Donuts, pretzels, or grapes?  Should the host drink first?  Do we need more gifts?  Which way is the wind blowing?  And on top of all that you want resolutions, too?  Yeah, right.

If New Year’s Day came later in the year, perhaps when the days are getting warmer and flowers are starting to bloom, then we can come up with some good resolutions.  Come see us when we’re not standing knee deep in used gift boxes trying to remember if they are recyclable, reorganizing our closets to make way for this winter’s post-holiday sizes, cleaning out the refrigerator of all the traditional holiday foods that everybody wanted but nobody ate.  Ask us to set goals when Mother Nature is setting some of hers, not when Old Man Winter is threatening to make a comeback from an overly mild December.

The ideal time for New Year’s would be late March, just about when spring is springing.  It’s far enough away from Valentine’s Day and Easter that we can use a holiday then.  The long depressing nights are over so our resolutions can be positive and begin with “we resolve that we will do this” like the start of a real goal rather than “we will never again do that” like the opening for a bad excuse.  Actually, up until a couple hundred years on the BC side of year counting, the beginning of the year was celebrated at the Vernal Equinox.  It wasn’t until the Ancient Romans with their penchant for tinkering with the calendar pushed it around to where it is today.

So our resolution for this year is to make our resolutions this spring.  Come see us then, but make sure you have a loaf of bread, a piece of coal, and a bag of money.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?

 

Say What?

Michael Leave a comment

Should old acquaintances be forgot?  Depends on the acquaintance and if he – or she – is old, long, and sighs.

Not only is it bad enough that New Year’s Eve comes at the end of a year, a most traumatic time for many, usually the last we hear of it is sung to a song written a couple hundred years ago in a language not many understand derived from poems written a couple hundred years earlier still in a language fewer use.  But sing it we do.  Even if we don’t have a clue to what we’re singing.

Somewhere, sometime, somebody translated most of the song.  We don’t know how accurate the translation is but we’ve been singing it that way since Guy Lombardo led his Pennsylvanians into the New Year that was 1930.  The Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote the lyrics as we know them in 1788.  He wrote more 500 poems and this is the one we remember at least once a year.  His inspiration may or may not have come from even earlier songs and poems dating to the 1500s.  Those earlier songs would seem to have or have not themselves inspired by yet even older Scottish folk songs of love and friendship.  It’s odd that even those whose careers rely on interpreting literature can’t agree on what the words mean.  The version Burns put to paper appears to be of friends recently parted.  Some say the lyrics refer to battles fought for king and country and some for God and honor.  Some have interpreted them to speak of a bond among men and some to a relationship between a man and a woman.  And those are of the lyrics we understand.

And no wonder there is confusion.  There’s not even consensus of what the title means.  We tried to research what those three little words really are and what they really mean.  The problem with “auld lang syne” is that it sounds suspiciously like English so most people feel they know what the words are and what they mean.  Odd long sign.  All sung high.  Old dang sign.  Old long high.  Odd dang high.  The first four references we checked gave us four different translations:  old long ago, time long past, old times’ sake, and times gone by.  So we gave up.  They mean whatever you want them to mean. 

We take them to mean that one should remember the year just ending and wish every friendship grows a year older by the end of next year.  The memory of every moment spent is a gift for the moments yet to come.  Every day gone by is an opportunity to welcome a new day.

Should old acquaintance be forgot? 
Oh dear let’s never mind. 
We’ll beg a cup the kind you brought
and pay you back some other time.

Hey, Happy New Year!

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?