For those of you ascribing to the Gregorian calendar I would like to offer a warm welcome to 2013. The rest of you will have to wait for your new year your fresh start your ending your beginning. By the time you get around to strapping on your dragon head and dancing through the streets to celebrate the Chinese New Year most of us will have abandoned our fresh start and new beginning for the comfort and ease of our old ways.

I think if we would have stuck with the Babylonian New Year celebration time from a few thousand years ago, during the Vernal Equinox at the beginning of Spring, our resolutions would have had a fighting chance. The dead of winter when we get 17 minutes of day light doesn’t seem to me to be the best time to institute quasi-starvation measures and intense physical activity.

The Romans always thought they knew best but the Babylonians had it right. Bump the New Year back a few months, take your time eating the Christmas leftovers and thoroughly scour the Christmas tree for the last candy cane. Let the bright lights of spring be the beacon of motivation shining its truthometer on the flesh you’ve kept under wraps over the winter months.

It seems to make more sense to have the new year and other such days of celebration follow the cycles of the moon and seasons rather than just a specific date but I guess it makes it much easier to market and make commercial gains when everyone is in agreement on buying noise makers and stupid hats held on with a rubber band that your brother is going to grab and snap at some time during the evening on a specific number on this thing called a calendar.

Let’s just get rid of the calendar. I’m tired of it. All it does is make me feel old, rush me to get things done I want to put off, do this then, do that now. Let’s just go by sleeps like my kids used to. They would ask, “How many sleeps until we go to Grandpa and Grandma’s house?” Days, weeks, months mean nothing to a kid. That’s just boring and needlessly confusing adult stuff. I’ll have a little chit chat with the Romans and see if we can’t make a few changes around here.

Oh that’s right, the Romans are dead. We don’t have to listen to dead people…well I don’t or can’t but some of you might. If you have such a gift let me know what Caesar has to say about my plan so I can note it in the minutes.

So your New Year resolution or assignment this year is to follow your own calendar. Celebrate whatever you want whenever you want as often as you want. Noise makers and stupid hats are optional. I must warn you that as an older brother it is my right and duty to snap the rubber strap on any and all stupid hats. Consider yourself warned.

Happy New Year…if you want. See you in a few sleeps.