Musing on the Arrival of a New Year

OK, these are not New Year’s fireworks, they are the Tugboat Festival fireworks over the Hudson and Mohawk rivers in September, but Happy New Year anyway!! Photo: Suzanne Spellen

Back before the digital age, it used to take me a good month to get used to the new year when writing checks, or anything else that had to be dated. Now it takes a day. Why? Because I never have to write it out anymore. My computer automatically puts the current date on any letter, invoice or document I’m writing, my cell phone reminds me of the year whenever I turn it on, and I am rarely called upon to say the date anywhere. I’m sure this is true for most people. A new year just ain’t what it used to be.

For me, New Year’s Day was always an uncertain holiday. Back when I had a 9-5, New Year’s Day was a time of weeping and wailing – we had to return to work on the 2^nd and jump back into all the things we tried to forget about the entire week before. I was fortunate that many of the companies I worked for over the years closed that week between Christmas and New Year’s. Now that I’m self-employed, there’s no such thing as a real day off. My boss is a slave driver who knows very few holidays.

Some of my ambivalence stems from childhood. While Christmas was a day of celebration, of presents opened and played with, and a wonderful dinner, New Year’s Day always started with church. My Mom was our parish organist and choir director, and she had to play for just about every service that came along, and that included Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, mass on Christmas morning and mass on New Year’s morning. When we were too young to stay home alone, we were dragged out from under the tree, popped into our coats and hats, and we were off to church too.

When we came home, Mom made a nice dinner, but it didn’t have the same verve and effort at Christmas. I’m sure my Mom was tired and had to get herself ready to go back to teaching. The time off for the holidays was never really enough.

Some families love to spend New Year’s Day sitting in front of the tv, snacking on junk food watching the Rose Bowl parade followed by a day of back to back football games. That was NOT our house. My Dad had no interest in televised sports. He didn’t watch football or baseball or anything else. He spent much of his leisure time tinkering around in his workshop/office. He was always trying to come up with that one invention or that one unique business that could make the family fortune.

For many years my Dad was the go-to guy for our parish. Our church was not the one that ambitious and connected priests were stationed at. When I was growing up, there weren’t very many Catholics in the small town I lived in, or in the surrounding villages, either. Our little flock could fill about 2 complete rows in most of the churches in New York City. We were only one step removed from being a mission in the wilderness. Dad was a Catechism teacher on Saturday mornings (something else we had to go to), he was on the laymen’s council, and after Vatican II, was a lay reader. That means he would go up to the lectern and read the Bible passage for the service. He was one of the more active members of the congregation.

I remember at least three priests at Holy Cross over the course of my childhood, I even remember two of their names. The second priest, Father Thompson, was elderly when he was assigned there, and when he retired, the diocese sent Father Pilson to us. He was much younger, probably not all that far out of seminary. It was now the late 1960s-early 70s, We teens loved Father Pilson because he was cool. He had longish hair, liked pop music and understood us kids. He was a breath of fresh air for our stodgy parish.

The reason I’m telling this story at New Year’s is because every New Year’s Day he would have an open house, where everyone in the parish was invited to drop by the rectory, have some refreshments and just socialize outside of that strict social structure that was the Catholic Church. On those occasions, he was not in clerical black robes but just a guy in regular clothes, albeit with a collar.

I remember being there with my parents and brother one New Year’s Day. They served eggnog, punch, cocktails and finger foods. I remember the eggnog because I had never had homemade eggnog before, and I think I got a cup of the spiked stuff by accident. I’ve liked eggnog ever since. The ladies, including my Mom and her friends were sitting in the dining room chatting, and most of the men were in the living room – watching football on tv.

Some of them, including our pastor, were really into it, doing what people do while sitting in front of a football game, eating without looking at the food, giving the team instructions, sitting at the edge of their seats when an important play was in motion and cheering or groaning, depending on the result. I remember my Dad was just not into it. He sat there with the rest of them, nursing his drink, but not really involved. I don’t think anyone noticed, but I would bet he couldn’t wait to go home. Fortunately for him, when you have kids, you have a good excuse to get out of there.

This year, like every year, I watched the ball drop in Times Square from the warmth and safety of my living room. Even when I lived in NYC, I had no intention of going to Time Square. Too many people, too crowded, usually too cold, and not my idea of fun. After the ball drops, everyone sings “Aulde Lang Syne” and Frank Sinatra finishes singing “New York, New York,” I can just imagine the hordes of people making their way through the streets, on the subway platforms and the crowded trains. No, thank you.

I’m not that fond of New Year’s Eve parties either. I think the last one I went to was about 40 years ago. I went along with one of my college roommates, I think she knew the host from her high school days. It was somewhere in the Bronx, where she grew up. I didn’t know a soul there, except for her.

My function at the dance parties during my 20s was holding up the wall, or if I’m lucky, holding down a chair. I’ve never been the life of the party, and I think I must radiate vibes that say, “I’m not interested, don’t even bother to come over here.” I really don’t mean to be like that, but was very shy, with low self-esteem, have never been good at casual conversation with strangers (if you can hear them, or hear yourself talk over the music) and I don’t consider myself a good dancer. So, guys weren’t running over to my place on the wall to ask me to dance. A force field couldn’t do better than what I was sending out there.

That, of course, was depressing, which didn’t help my vibe. Also, my friend I was with is the exact opposite, she’s petite and attractive, chatty, a great dancer, and confident and comfortable with herself. So, she was being asked to dance over and over. I wasn’t jealous, I really didn’t want to go out there. Most of the people there were already couples, so when the countdown began and when it was midnight, everyone started kissing their partners, and more than one single guy tried to get a kiss from her. By now, I’m doubly depressed and even less attractive to strangers.

When I got home, I made a promise to never go to another New Year’s Eve party again. I’ve kept that promise. I’ve spent New Year’s Eve in an apartment in the Bronx, two houses in Brooklyn and my apartment here in Troy. I’ve been fine with staying home, now spending it with my friend Deb, who lives upstairs. She comes down to my apartment, we watch the ball drop, toast with something bubbly, or eggnog! She goes back upstairs, and I go to sleep.

Most of my friends feel the same way, and most stay home. Are we just aging dinosaurs getting too tired to dodge the meteors of life? Maybe, or we’re just more comfortable with letting another year slide into the next without a lot of fanfare. No big deal. I wear my New Year’s curmudgeon top hat proudly.

When I was a child, we always had our Christmas tree and house decorations up until after the Feast of the Epiphany. (yes, there was a mass then too!) When I moved to NYC, it was fascinating to me that you started to see Christmas trees, all naked and forlorn, on the curb on the 26th, or sanitation pick up. I had a friend who was taking his down Christmas evening, with all evidence of holiday decoration gone the next day, like it never happened. By New Year’s, the sidewalks were stacked with trees, but there were always those who kept them as we did, until Twelfth Night, after the Wise Men visited the manger.

I haven’t had a tree in years. I have cats. My apartment isn’t open plan, thank goodness, but it’s open enough that the front parlor has no doors that I can close to keep the little buggers away from a tree. I do decorate my fireplace mantel with holiday greenery and fairy lights, and I have a wreath on my apartment door. I fill my mother’s crystal punchbowl with Christmas ornaments and glittery stuff, also plastic, and hope for the best. If they bat a couple of bulbs around, it’s not the end of the world. I plan on keeping everything up for at least another week, and will leave the greenery (also artificial, with real pinecones) up even longer.

The feast of the Epiphany celebrates the Adoration of the Magi, the arrival of the Three Kings, or Wise Men to Bethlehem to honor the birth of Jesus. They followed a star and came bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Ironically, at least for Americans, the feast of the Epiphany always falls on January 6^th. Very few people even know what frankincense and myrrh are, but gold – yeah, that’s still being gifted, but not to a baby, born homeless in a foreign nation, sleeping in a stable.

Frankincense had many uses in the ancient world and is still in use today. The oil is a precious substance, used as a healing balm to treat wounds and relieve arthritis. It’s also an ingredient in perfumes. When used in the burning of incense, the sweet smelling smoke symbolizes a prayer making its way to heaven. It is still used by Catholics, Episcopalians/Anglicans and Easter Orthodox congregations on important feast days and celebratory services. It’s a smell that takes me back to those days in that small parish.

In the ancient world, it was an expensive and special gift. A gift of love and respect. In 2025, let’s be frankincense. Let us be all manner of healer wherever and to whomever is in need. It doesn’t mean just being a doctor. Wounds are not always easily visible. Let’s try to do our best in healing our world, because it is deeply wounded in many ways. Let our presence be a sweet smoke to those around us, be kind and generous. Let’s be that special gift. Let us be frankincense this year.

Peace and Blessings,

Suzanne

Amended to add this beautiful quote sent to me today from my friend Trudy Hamner. As a local point of local interest, Rev. Thurman’s daughter was the first African American student at Troy’s elite Emma Willard School.