Thoughts on the New Year’s celebration

Among the many odd things I think about is how the original inhabitants of this area got along in this just awful weather.

If you went through elementary school in New York you know that the local tribes lived in bark houses, long  or round, with cook fires in the middle surrounded by bunks under which the resident families stored food in pits.

What is the R factor of bark?  One?

Just think, it’s, on our calendar, the very end of December. How much insulation would we need to keep warm in our houses without central heating?

Now why would my thoughts stray to this?

I was thinking about New Year’s Eve and the following day and wondering why we have chosen this as a holiday. You know, when the post office, the banks, the schools, etc. are closed.

OK, so it’s the first day of our calendar’s new year.

And?

We start collecting data for the New Year’s taxes?  Our health insurance for the New Year begins?  We make resolutions to not do things the way we did them in the past year? Are these and other “new” year beginnings the reason why many get dressed up, go out, eat, drink and be merry or stay home and invite others in to join them in home grown merriment?

We once were New Year revelers.

Some years we would go out, attending one or more parties, dressed in special glamorous clothing…or at least the Marcellus version thereof.

I remember one particular New Year’s Eve when I wore a little black dress and a coat of faux fur, created somewhere in China from the wild orlon. Chic?

On other years we were the hosts for such a party. I distinctly remember washing dishes at 3 a.m. mumbling about why I was stuck with this chore when I was so tired.

This was after cleaning up the party’s debris of streamers and confetti which, for some idiot reason, we thought we had to have to throw all over the furniture. I did need the next day to recover.

We stopped going out. We stopped hosting parties. Of course having children does put the brakes on a lot of things, but if I used them as an excuse, that would be cheating.

I just couldn’t fathom what all of the hoopla was about. After all, this writer has an almost master’s degree in anthropology. I am six hours short because of the children, or in this case, our first born child.  There is the connection between New Year’s celebration and parenthood. Not a strong one, but something to think about.

As a person who has studied the culture of other groups, our New Year’s celebrations  were several days off  from the more widespread acknowledgement of the calendar turning: the winter solstice. At the winter solstice, the days seem to hang in the air, shorter than ever and then, as if by magic formula, return, minute by minute. People everywhere on earth have marked this transition. Many of the popular novels contain references to the European versions. The Scandinavians call it Jul, the Brits, Yule. Perhaps you have heard of it. The ancient Romans had a more vivid revelry called Saturnalia.

Other peoples throughout the world take note of and celebrate this occasion.

The Christmas time celebration was selected to be near that late December date because it did signify the returning of the light, a rebirth of the day.  The New Testament’s descriptions of the birth of Christ, indicate that the nativity happened in the spring. The Yule log and its chocolate version are now associated with Christmas as is mistletoe…another remnant of pre-Christian celebrations.

So, what does this have to do with the Iroquois longhouse?  As far as I know, our calendar’s New Year was just another day for them.

Their midwinter celebrations occurred five days after the first moon after the winter solstice, which happens in either January or February.

These were joyous celebrations of rejuvenation, dedication and political renewal.  They lasted three weeks.

As one contemporary member of the Onondaga tribe describes the Midwinter celebration, “you are exhausted and renewed, a lot different from our celebration of the New Year which pales in purpose and length but delivers in exhaustion.

We will be home on New Year’s Eve. We probably will not even attempt to see the “ball” drop in Times Square.

But, Happy New Year…a good one, a better one, a healthier one wrapped in the joy of your family.