Strictly and honestly speaking, why all the excitement about a new year?

A break to keep score and to start over. Like tax day many child tax credits are on who was living with you on December.

Another year we made it out alive.

Same reason we celebrate birthdays. We need something to celebrate.

I agree with your question – the dates on the calendar are just arbitrary. Were it timed to the Winter Solstice, it would make more sense to me as a marker of the passage of time for all earthlings. I celebrate birthdays of those I love, because the specific date is relative to the individual person having survived another cycle around the sun, and I appreciate their existence.

I treat it like any other day. I’ve never understood all the fuss. I actually don’t like any holidays. I don’t ever celebrate my birthday and I’d skip Christmas and Easter if I could. Not to mention all the “day off from work” excuse “holidays”.

Birth and re-birth are the beginning of a new start on life.

Celebrating the start of a new year can be a chance to put the past behind us, or a chance to count our blessings. Either way, most people go into a new year hopeful, and hope is much to be desired.

I don’t ‘go out and celebrate’, but I see New Years as a valuable time for reflection on our lives.

A new tax year!

Well….....Why not?

It is fun. Party with friends or watch the ball drop. Shit, it is the least commercial of the holidays so that is something to celebrate right there.

Just that much closer to spring and better weather! Getting to Jan. 1 is the first big hump to get over in winter.

Another year to live!
Every year we hope that a new year might mean something wonderful would happen to bring us happiness at a level we had never experienced. So we all rejoice. It’s just a chance to start all over again.

January 1st is the end of the long, exhausting, expensive, and highly-caloric holiday season. Life officially returns to normal. There’s no more Christmas music blaring in every store. All those decorations, which no longer seem festive or look pretty, will be taken down and stored away.

Haven’t a clue,just another year older and deeper in debt, oh yeah.

The new year is my least favorite celebration of all of them. I hate it because it makes me feel like I am getting older and my life is getting shorter. One less year that I will be living through; one more year closer to my death year; another tick on the tally. I always depresses me. But still, happy 2014!!

@dxs: Every breath leaves me one less to my last.

Something else to break up the monotony of winter….although it isn’t winter everywhere.
I think that as humans we enjoy having everyone on the same page, like a giant group gathering where everyone agrees.

@Dutchess_III “Something else to break up the monotony of winter.”

Isn’t it unfortunate that winter peaks so early? Now, we need to slog through until springtime arrives.

@dxs & @hearkat one second closer to a much deserved rest.

:-)

Hoppy New Year!!

The days are getting longer, it won’t be long now @SadieMartinPaul.

Because it’s human nature to structure time, reflect the past and ponder the future.