Those who predict, as pollsters repeatedly remind us, can’t really prognosticate. In ancient times some prophets were thought to be given (usually conditional) views of the future directly from God, but even these weren’t fail-proof. Nobody knows what 2025 holds for us. I love holidays, but New Year’s Day is one of the more chancy ones. I don’t stay up until midnight because if I do I don’t sleep that night (I tend to awake just a couple hours after midnight most days), and I don’t make resolutions since I try to correct errors in my life as soon as I find them. Maybe New Year’s could stand a makeover. Something beyond staying up late and drinking. In my experience, the next year comes anyway. And it should be an opportunity for hope.
Interestingly, although attempts have been made to Christianize the day, it tends to remain secular. The current date was established in the west because of the rebranding of solstice celebrations to the birth of Jesus, but the religious elements never really stuck to New Year’s Day. It marks a clean slate for taxes and other financial resets. Importantly, it’s a day off work. Maybe we should rebrand it. Honestly, I don’t have any suggestions myself—this sounds like a job for a committee. Who wouldn’t want to be on a holiday committee? And holidays do evolve over time. When it was Columbus Day many employers didn’t make it a paid holiday. Rebranded as Indigenous Peoples Day, some progressive companies did. See what I mean? Holidays are what we make them.
The more I think about this, the more I wonder if we shouldn’t reinstate the twelve days of Christmas. Epiphany (aka Insurrection Day) comes on January 6, and, pre-Adam Smith the twelve days lasted until then. New Year’s could be one among siblings. I’m sure that if we tried hard enough we could come up with some branding for each day. The Brits already have Boxing Day on the 26th. The Scots make the 31st Hogmanay. Our task, should we choose to accept it, would be to fill in the 27th through the 30th and January second through the fifth. If we divide that up and send it to committee I’m sure we could come up with something. It seems we already have the ten lords a-leaping lined up. Said lords prefer having two more work days this week, I know. Perhaps New Year’s, or even the Christmas season, could stand a bit of workshopping so we can really catch up with our sleep. Here’s hoping, for 2025.
Let’s give them time to arrive! Image credit: The Adoration of the Magi – painting by Gerard David, Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication by the Metropolitan Museum of Art
