HAPPY NEW YEAR?

Bah Humbug

Christmas piggy-backs on a more ancient rite. This is the marking of the winter solstice when the sun reaches its lowest point and appears to stand still in the sky. The word comes from the Latin sol meaning sun and sistere to stand still.

Ancient people were nervous in case the sun decided it had enough and refused to climb higher in the sky. So, fearing famine and the end of their society, they waited tremulously for it to have pity on the world and renew its journey. They often went to great lengths to applaud the fact that it was on the move, erecting edifices, monuments or temples to give thanks to the fiery orb.

But it didn’t stop there, oh no. Many societies decided to let their hair down in relief, to celebrate the promise of good times ahead. Feasting, dancing, music and games were the order of the day.

The ancient Egyptians made a big fuss about it but they were not the only ones. A quick internet search tells me that Yalda, Saturnalia, Karachun, Hanukkah, the Dongzhi Festival, Kwanzaa and Yule were are also celebrated around this time. People in the southern hemisphere, of course, had to wait six months for their solstice parties.

Knowing that having a good time in the depths of winter is very enticing, some early Christian prelates decided to let the new religion get in on the act and created Christmas Day. Presumably, they didn’t want to be thought of as poopers of existing parties and were keen to persuade people that Christianity was a fun religion. Or maybe they just liked a drink.

So when people say that all this commercialism, gluttony, drunkenness and general mayhem is against the meaning of Christmas, I beg to differ. It stole the solstice’s celebratory outfit so all the excess is very much part of it. 

The most out of sorts part of the holiday season is the week between Boxing Day and New Year. People have become exhausted with all the gaiety, not to mention having to be pleasant to people they can’t wait to see the back of. These days are not honoured by special epithets although that hasn’t stopped some bright sparks coming up with them. Betwixmas, the Merrinium, Crimbo Limbo or Twixtmas are just some of the terms to describe the jaded, listless, apathetic week.

Les Saltimbanques (The Entertainers) (1874) by Gustave Doré - or Don’t tell we’ve got to celebrate New Year as well!

And what’s to look forward to? New Year’s Eve that festival of binge drinking or watching too much television, New Year’s Day and the horror of making resolutions which you know you’ll never keep? And, of course, Hogmanay. At least we don’t any longer have to watch The White Heather Club when Scottish entertainers, kilts, swathes of tartan and comic songs made any alcohol challenged stomach even queasier.

I have long disliked New Year. This isn’t because I fail at making New Year Resolutions, in fact, I’ve had 100% success in keeping them. Or rather, keeping one, which is never to make another New Year Resolution. I recommend it.

Nor is it because of memories of teenage angst about whether or not I’d get a New Year kiss from the most gorgeous girl at the disco, or her less attractive friend, then any female or even the cashier’s dog which was called Scotty and wore a tartan jacket.

Nor is it even the televising of The White Heather Club.

No, the real reason I dislike New Year is this.

I must have been in my early twenties and left the Adam and Eve Night Nightclub having finally won a kiss from Scotty. I had slightly lost count of how many drinks and as I negotiated the three-mile journey home I began to worry that I might be over the legal limit. I remember thinking that I shouldn’t drive too slowly nor too carefully as this was a sure sign of having imbibed too much. So I drove at a steady, or perhaps unsteady, 35 miles an hour, peering in my rear-view mirror for any sign of a police car.

I had almost reached the end of the town when I saw him. A man, lying face down in the gutter. I slowed instinctively, wondering if he’d been in an accident – probably, I thought to myself, an accident caused by one of those heedless drunk drivers. But then I wondered, what do I do if I stop? There was a telephone box nearby and I could call for an ambulance. But that would mean the police would come and then, dear god, I’d be breathalysed and lose my license.

So - not at all the good Samaritan - I drove past the man and headed home.

One hundred yards, two hundred yards, three, all the time thinking I had made the sensible decision. Four hundred yards, five hundred, six, starting to think I was a heartless coward.

I heaved a sigh, made a turn in a petrol station forecourt, and drove back the way I had come. I would lose my licence, no doubt about that but I may have saved the man’s life.

I drove to where I had seen him in the gutter but now there was no sign of him. Perhaps I had mistaken where he was. I drove a short way past, then drove back, turned once more in the forecourt and drove back a second time, still frantically searching for him. If there were any police cars nearby I would definitely be arrested.

And then I saw him. He was no longer lying in the gutter, nor injured in any way. He was reeling along the road, singing tunelessly. Then he stopped and gave a prodigious vomit on someone’s front door. A gruesome variation on First Footing.

You bastard, I thought, not only for leaving this unwelcome new year present but for almost making me lose my licence. Still cursing, I hurried home.

To this day, I still remember my great failing. Not drinking too much or allowing myself to be kissed by a dog - but being prepared to ignore someone who may have been injured. So New Year is not a pleasant time for me.

Happy New Year.