Pause Before the New Year

For years, I stopped making New Year’s resolutions. Most crumbled before the end of January, anyway, especially those related to new diets.

This year, I see the effort in a different way.

The week between Christmas and New Year’s Day is a quiet haven. Hectic preparations and celebrations of Christmas are behind us for another year. A new year looms. Debt, health, family interactions. Needs and wishes. All essential. All necessary.

The most common resolutions—exercise, weight loss, organization, quitting a bad habit—can be addressed on any day, at any time.

What makes the internal announcement more significant on January 1st? Studies show that of those who make pledges, 46% achieve their goals, while only 4% of those who do not make a New Year’s resolution manage to make changes.

In that case, I’ll reinstate an ancient tradition for myself this year.

The term “Resolutions” may have come from a diary in 1671 by Anne Halkett, Scottish gentry, who included vows lifted from the Bible in her entry January 2nd.

In ancient times, Babylonians promised to return borrowed farm equipment. Medieval knights renewed pledges of chivalry. In 46 B.C. Romans created the Julian calendar and made the First of January each year’s beginning.

The two-headed Roman god Janus (Latin for “passageway”) represented reflection and new beginnings, and Romans offered sacrifices as they pledged good behavior for the coming year.

And between the past and future? The week between Christmas and New Year’s Day.

For years, our family drove to Kalkaska to spend the week in a quiet, snowy setting on Mom and Dad’s ten acres off County Road 612 North, a tradition we enjoyed when I was a child, and later, as wife and mother.

In that wilderness, you could hear the silence of snow and starry nights. No hum of electric wires, no highway traffic. A lovely, peaceful quiet, and soothing for all ages. That week lasted longer than seven days, and was a pocket of timelessness surrounded by a winter scene worthy of a calendar.

For me, that serenity still carries into every year between the two holidays. “And we’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne,” as Robert Burns wrote.

And my resolutions this year? Yes, I’m setting myself a new budget, simple and hopefully, unbreakable. But there’s another.

After a year of challenges, as all years are, especially for adults, I resolve to pause, day by day, and savor my life.

In the musical Scrooge (by Leslie Bricusse), the miser learns from the Ghost of Christmas Present that, “I like life, here and now, life and I made a mutual vow. ‘Till I die, life and I, we’ll both try to be better somehow.”

Old Ebenezer also shares his method after the three Ghosts’ visits:

“I will start anew, I will make amends, and I’ll make quite certain that this story ends on a note of hope, on a strong Amen. And I’ll thank the world and remember when I was able to begin again!”

Couldn’t say it better myself, Ebenezer.

No silent starry nights this year. No snowy setting, but those memories are crisp and cherished, and between Christmas Joy and New Year’s fresh start, I can add my vow, with God’s help:

Just for today, I will be happy.

Here and now, I can slow down, acknowledge my blessings, and let the year unfold, day by day, in gratitude for life, family, friends, and sharing that in my story writing.

“I like life, life likes me. Life and I fairly fully agree. Life is fine, life is good, ‘specially mine which is just as it should be.”

Thank you, Ebenezer Scrooge (and Leslie Bricusse, songwriter).

Happy New Year to all of you, and may your year bring happiness and satisfaction, no matter what waits ahead.

“And there’s a hand, my trusty friend! And give me a hand o’ thine! And we’ll take a right good-will draught for auld lang syne.” (Robert Burns)