Happy New Year?

I must admit that celebrating New Year's day as a major holiday is quite perplexing to me. I do acknowledge the interestingness of this day as it marks a passing of time and the need to refresh ourselves every so often with days like this, but a day of celebration (or should I say recovery from the its eve) just strikes me as a bit odd.

I was told last night that this makes me weird and party-pooperish. So be it. It might have been better, I think, to make the passing of time more poignant by, perhaps, marking it with the seasons. Like establishing and celebrating the generally accepted end of Winter and beginning of Spring or something like that. Much like Christmas, Easter, and Harvest celebrations are seasonally -- if not purely astrologically -- measured.

As a Catholic, it always irks the heck out of me when Masses celebrating the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God (the feast of January 1st), become "Happy New Years!" ceremonies. When Fr. Nice Guy reads his resolutions, gives the predictable "do your best in 2009!", or offers the more palatable "let's be grateful for 2008" during the homily, I feel like I'm at, well, a New Years celebration. For the intents and purposes -- that, religion aside, suit me much better, at least from a time-division standpoint -- of the Church the (liturgical) year ended and begun right before Advent.

In spite of all that, Happy New Year to all of you. I hope 2009 is a nice time-space thingy for us all.