Christmas isn't really a sentimental time to me. I find it crass and offensively on nerves for the most part, the prostitution of belief to inflate sales of ticky-tack each and every year. I never really used to look forward to it external to the fact it used to mark the summer holidays. It doesn't help that I'm Athiest. There's no spiritual element to it, and it's just too garish and too much to really take seriously.
What I do like though is New Years. It's not really a celebrated thing in this family, but I'd like to think once I have my own place and my own life that I could make a big fuss about it. I do try to make something special of it. I think the first time I recognised new years as something more special to me was welcoming in the new millennium with fireworks on the lake. I'll always remember the time I stayed up all night with a little portable radio to hear Fatboy Slim play at Bondi Beach on the stroke of midnight, or when I managed to talk a new friend into marking the occasion and staying up with me.
There's just something about starting a new year that feels fresh to me. Like it's a genuine chance to let go of the year before and embrace something new and exciting. There's something more worthwhile in celebrating that, rather than an overblown 3 month "celebration" of someone's god that's replaced the celebrations of older, different gods.
I don't mean to sound so bah humbug about Christmas. I think there are things worth recognising and celebrating, I'm just not sure Christmas is one of them.
29th's of February are another day I like to mark, I mean it comes every four years, that makes it somewhat more unique than other days. Doesn't it? I think that's a good reason to celebrate that.
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