Published: December 30, 2007 06:34 pm            

The Off Season: Making a resolution about New Year’s resolutions

TERRE HAUTE — We’ve never made a big, big deal in our family about celebrating on New Year’s Eve. I guess since my wife and I hardly grew up enjoying the lifestyles of the rich and famous, we normally observe a pretty low-key affair in our household; no party hats or noise makers, no champagne or dancing on table tops. We’re simply happy to be home together and not out taking our chances with the mayhem on the roads.

All in all, I’d say that our idea of bringing in 2008 probably will be similar to quite a few others who are reading this story today. Sure, we’ll spend some time with friends and family, but we’ll make an early evening of it, get home to pop a little popcorn, uncork a decidedly recent vintage of sparkling grape juice, play a few games of Scrabble, and be under a blanket on the couch by the time the big ball drops in Times Square.

We know we’re not exactly Astaire and Rogers. Besides, I think I’d look pretty silly in a top hat; she doesn’t like high heels. Since I’m a notoriously early riser, I’m usually nodding off before Dick Clark ever shows his creaseless face on the television, so my wife may very well be making a solitary countdown to my first audible snore of the year.

It’s my understanding that it was the Babylonians who first celebrated the coming of the New Year some 4,000 years ago. A few centuries later they actually were partying at the time of the New Moon, or the first day of spring. Their get-togethers ran at least eleven days — a schedule that would wreak havoc with the modern office or school-year calendar today.

It was the Romans who really changed things, particularly the calendar, itself, so eventually the first day of January became recognized as the beginning of the new year. It was only after the Middle Ages that equating New Year’s celebrations with paganism began to fade; although if you take a look at the police blotter in tomorrow’s newspaper, I imagine that some comparisons still can be drawn.

We also can credit those same Babylonians with the origin of making New Year’s resolutions, but theirs were hardly like ours today. Whereas tonight we may swear off smoking or late-night snacks of beef jerky and Milky Ways or wearing sweat pants and flip-flops to the supermarket, they would vow to do things like return the ox they borrowed from a neighbor in a timely fashion. I think it’s safe to say that I returned the last ox I borrowed.

The Romans supposedly used resolutions in the first few days after their New Year’s parties, too, but often to simply swear not to get as drunk or wild as they had just been in the few previous days; they apparently weren’t interested in setting long-term goals.

It was actually the Puritans who may have had the most to do with our current tradition of making resolutions; they encouraged folks to take a vow to avoid sinful or indulgent vices in the year ahead. I imagine that more than a handful of Puritans broke their resolutions, too.

I can’t say that I make resolutions, although I know I have a few habits that are undoubtedly worth breaking. For instance, I salt my food before I taste it. I over-tighten lids on jars, and my wife often can’t get them open unless I’m home to do it. I really like fudge, too, and I know I don’t brush my teeth long enough.

A recent article in U.S. News and World Report suggests that instead of making those old-fashioned resolutions, we should simply make a “Not-to-Do List,” a litany of “strategic objectives” to change negative behavior over the next year. Strategic objectives … I think a good day is one in which my pants and shirt match when I leave for work.

The year we’re leaving behind tonight was a good one for my family, and I don’t think it’s right to ask for much more than what I already have: a wife who has learned to tolerate my “eccentricities,” two kids who’ve made me proud, more friends than I have space here to name, and a warm place to sleep.

I think that instead of swearing off the multitude of sins I undoubtedly put on display every day, maybe I should go ahead and give that “Not-to-Do List” a try.

And at the top of it will be a little reminder that above just about everything else, I shouldn’t be ungrateful.

Mike Lunsford can be reached at hickory913@aol.com or by regular mail c/o the Tribune-Star, PO Box 149, Terre Haute, IN 47808.

        

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