Dropping the Ball

With the possible exception of Valentine’s Day, few holidays on the American calendar cause as much angst and apathy as New Year’s Eve. For most of us, it is a chore to eat and drink too much and stay up too late yet again after what is a seemingly endless stretch of feasting, shopping and stressing since Thanksgiving.

Still, as much as I would like to join “the band of tatterdemalions” known as the Banished Fools during Bright Night Providence, and mingle among the monster puppets of Big Nazo and bang a drum or blow a horn with the Extraordinary Rendition Band, and wake up the next morning to jump into Narragansett Bay with various Polar Bears, Penguins and Scuppers, I’ll be up in moose country instead, wearing antlers instead of a jester’s hat.

But before I head north, I’d like to propose something for next year. Why not shift the New Year to March, where it used to be?

As established, the holiday comes too soon after Christmas and Thanksgiving to be given the respectful indulgence it deserves. In fact, it convolutes the Christmas season, occurring in the middle its 12 feast days and rendering insignificant the celebration of Twelfth Night on Jan. 6.

For centuries many cultures, including the Mesopotamians, who are credited with giving us the first New Year’s bash (with party favors and resolutions printed in Sanskrit), started the year with the vernal equinox – the beginning of spring. (Some cultures – Egyptians, Phoenicians, Persians and Celts among them – began the year in autumn, while the Greeks started during the winter solstice.) The ancient Romans, after centuries of cheering the New Year on March 1, moved the holiday when they created the months of January and February for the Julian calendar, although many Romans continued to celebrate in March. Medieval religious leaders later abolished Jan. 1 as the New Year, moving it to Christmas Day, to honor the birth of Christ. The Gregorian calendar reestablished the January date in 1582, although the British Empire – including its colonies in America – kept partying in March until 1752.

So maybe it’s time to go back to March to start the calendar. The only down side is that we would end every year with the darkest, coldest months, with only valentines, groundhogs and college basketball to cheer us up. But on the plus side, by the time New Year's Eve arrived in March, the hangover might actually be worth it.

This week’s question: What is the best way to celebrate the New Year in Rhode Island?

[Blogger’s note: Early post this week, given the impending trip to the Granite State. Rest in peace, Dick Clark.]