Happy New Year’s Eve! I am celebrating just the way I want – a meal of sparkling apple juice, cheese, crackers, nuts, with a little bit of chocolate while watching Hallmark Christmas movies. It’s not a fancy dress party in a hotel or the ball drop in Times Square, but it’s perfect for me.
When I was a little girl, I thought that parties were how all grown-ups celebrated New Year’s Eve, because it’s what my parents did. Every year they would invite everyone, seriously, everyone that they knew to a party that they hosted at our house. I spent most of the celebrations at my grandparents, who babysat me and my sister while my parents partied.
Though, I remember one party. Well, not the party, because it was past my bedtime. But, I remember helping out with the set up. I was amazed at how the balloons stuck to the fake wood paneling just by rubbing them on my hair. The food spread was a seventies hors d’oevres extravaganza, complete with a cheese ball and crackers, potato chips with a dip made from sour cream and dry onion soup mix, fancy meatballs with frilly toothpicks, and maybe a Jell-o mold. My sister and I greeted a few guests and we were sent to bed. Since that was what I knew, I thought that everybody celebrated the New Year that way. Plus, I knew that when I was a grown-up that I would celebrate just like they did. What I didn’t know, because I was only six or seven, is that the only constant in life was that things would change.
The world changed. By the time I could legally have champagne at midnight, AIDS was an epidemic and people were worried about their cholesterol. MTV played the music rather than my parents hi-fi, complete with an 8-track tape player. The world changed and I had changed.
The New Year’s Eve that I was twenty-one, I was pregnant with my first child. There was no champagne for me that year. The next one, I was a nursing mother, The third New Year’s Eve I was pregnant with my second child. By the fourth one, I was used to sparkling apple juice and a clear head, which I needed with two children in diapers. The idea of a New Year’s Eve cocktail party didn’t appeal to me as much as going to bed before midnight and getting a night of uninterrupted sleep. I developed a habit of not partying, unintentionally, but a habit nonetheless.
This got me to thinking about habits for the next year. I would rather cultivate a habit than write a resolution. Habits are made with the intent of developing a lifestyle discipline. Resolutions made on December 31st have all been forgotten by Valentine’s Day.
This year, I want to revive my habit of going to bed before midnight. I lost my bedtime routine habit and also my habit of wearing pants with a zipper in 2020 during Covid lockdown. Since I didn’t have to drive anywhere and just had to walk a few feet to the computer for Zoom meetings, I acquired bad habits instead good ones.
Unfortunately, they have persisted until today. I don’t want to get back to my crazy pre-Covid over-scheduled life. However, I do want back the discipline of getting up at around the same time the sun does. By staying up late, my day now starts off at about the time I would have had a second cup of coffee. I don’t like it. Even though I am awake for the same amount of time, my productivity drops off when the sun goes down.
Habit number one for 2024 is a better bedtime routine. Habit number two is one that I saw on a friend’s posting on Facebook that I want to adopt also. I want to pray for one friend each week. If you want me to pray for you, please send me the verse that you would like for me to pray for you. If you can’t think of a verse, that’s okay. I just want to pray for you.
Here’s to 2024! May it be a year that bad habits are broken and good ones take their place!
Journey with Monica 