You know, I realized this year that New Year’s Day is actually kind of a sucky holiday.

I think it’s because that day, in spite of the propaganda that would tell you otherwise, is about endings, not fresh beginnings. We — I’m talking about American society in general here, not anyone in particular — expend so much energy on gearing up for the Holiday Season™. We spend weeks and, in some cases, months planning and preparing and shopping and decorating and cooking and whatever else people do to get ready for The Big Day, Christmas Day, and then suddenly Christmas is upon us and we still feel unprepared and if only we’d managed to finish that one last thing everything would be just perfect but there’s no more time, and then just as suddenly Christmas is over and gone for another year, and oh, bummer… but wait! There’s still a week to go, a few more days left in the Holiday Season™, time to spend and enjoy as we see fit, but it, too, goes so fast and suddenly it’s New Year’s Eve, and maybe you have a party to go to and maybe you don’t, but no matter because they never seem to be as swanky as those old black-and-white movies make New Year’s parties out to be anyway, then that night is gone as well in a flash of light from that damn ball descending over Times Square. And then it’s New Year’s Day and everything is done. The colored lights are switched off, the decorations start coming down — unless you’re at my mother’s house, of course, where they stay up until mid-January, at least — and even if you’re lucky (or wise) enough not to have destroyed yourself the night before, there’s still a bleary sense of frustration to contend with. You’re left simply… hanging there, caught between one breath of the world and the next. There’s nothing to watch on TV, if you don’t happen to enjoy football; more places are closed for the holiday than are open, so there’s nowhere to go, and even in the shops that are open, the post-Christmas bargain hunters have picked the bones clean and left nothing worth buying; and every tick of the clock is another reminder that this is it, there are only a few more hours left before the holiday break is over and you have to be back at work at in the morning, so you’d better get cracking and do whatever it is you you’re going to do with your last day off before the long, cold stretch of holiday-less months until Memorial Day. But instead you sit around half the day trying to think of something to do and then when you figure out a plan, you feel rushed because the sun is westering and there’s only a few hours until you’ve got to be back at the office and then it’s nighttime and then… then you really are back at the office and it’s all over and you’re right back into the same damn rut you were in only a week earlier. And it’s really damn cold outside, and the pretty white snow is turning dirty gray. And there are 37 more weeks of winter to go, or so it feels…

Sigh.

Truthfully, my New Year’s Day wasn’t that bad — The Girlfriend and I had a pleasant afternoon together and shared a very pleasant dinner with friends — but like I said, New Year’s Day carries with it the inescapable feeling that something is over, and I hate that feeling…