I rarely post two articles to this blog in the same week, but on this eve of New Year’s Eve, it seemed appropriate to do so. You can also consider this article the holiday bonus your employer didn’t give you. (If you’re a railroad employee, just don’t get sick over that. You have no paid sick leave!)
Let me start by saying something that could be disappointing: No matter how you celebrate the changing of the year, there’s nothing really new about the “New Year.” The calendar, whichever one you follow, is just a creation of human beings, often without rhyme or reason. There’s not much astronomical data contained therein (maybe your calendar does list the phases of the moon, and there’s some argument for creating a year based on lunar cycles), but the calendar most of us adhere to (and the international business people now follow, God bless their evil souls), at least in the West, was mostly created by Roman autocratic emperors (July and August were named after them) with some tweaks added by autocratic Catholic popes. Proof of this can easily be found: Ukraine celebrates two Christmases, the ubiquitous one of December 25 (that probably has nothing to do with Christ’s birthdate) and the Orthodox one in January (ditto, and creating a celebration of the schism between Rome and Constantinople).
In a sense, the equinoxes would be better days to celebrate (or their eves)! First, they’re astronomical and dependent on Earth’s orbit and axis tilt. (Each hemisphere would get at least two—or four, depending on how you count equinoxes.) Second, their celebration would be completely secular and independent of any religion unless you’re a pantheistic pagan. (I used “pagan” for alliteration—after all, I am a writer! Pantheism is a religion that believes in many gods—those Roman autocratic emperors were pantheists, although they often declared themselves to be gods too; whereas paganism is like atheism, i.e., a belief in no gods. My invented combination is very a propos for the Russian elite, though: Putin is a pantheistic pagan, because he considers himself and his oligarchs gods to be worshipped by the Russian people; yet he believes in none, except perhaps himself, a delusion like that of the old czars who considered themselves God’s representative in Russia. Of course, to be fair, Henry VIII had a similar delusion when he created the Church of England so he could get a divorce.)
And let’s not forget the third advantage: Americans could fill Times Square in NYC (and others wherever they celebrate New Year’s Eve around the world) several times per year (two or four, again depending on how you count equinoxes), reveling in human debauhery, suffering from the weather. (Rich SOBs like Jeff Bezos could suffer both extreme cold and extreme heat by flying in his business jet in one day from Rochester, New York, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, going from the winter solistice in the northern hemisphere to the summer one in the southern—even better, in his Blue Horizon spacecraft!)
With this bit of nostalgic yet informative blather and twaddle, I wish all my readers a Happy New Year. (You’re lucky. Those who don’t read this blog won’t ever know what a New Year’s gift they have missed!)