Like I said, I do like Christmas. It comes with a set of expectations and pressures though, that I could live without. Look at New Year’s! All the fun – none of the expectations.

I remember being a little girl eagerly anticipating January 1st to write in my brand new diary with the locking cover on a brand new, crisp page. That is what New Year’s Day is to me – a brand new crisp page. Even if it is just in my head – all things are possible. I love making resolutions. I can’t help but think and dream about what the coming year might hold and what might be possible.

January 1st comes on the heels of the solstice that promises that the days are lengthening and hope is on the horizon.  By hope, I mostly mean temperate weather, sunshine, warmth and Summer.  Other kinds of hope too – the kind that whispers ‘What do you want?’ I answer with secret thoughts and wishes, new quotes pasted all around my kitchen, a vision board full of the possible and improbable all the same. I am making a paper list of resolutions and I do not worry if I cannot keep them all – dreaming and planning is the best part. Hoping. Hope is the theme.

I am cooking, cleaning, and inviting guests. I am decorating and listening to music I love. Did I mention that I am cleaning? I am planning, dreaming, hoping, wishing and praying.

God – bless this day and let me see that it is holy. Clear my mind, plant my feet and set my path. Help to walk in light and love. Give me the strength and flexibility of a swift running river, the clarity and stillness of a deep lake, and the joy and energy of the rolling tide. So be it.                    ~ Janet Costello (New Year’s Prayer, 2014)

I can hardly contain my excitement about New Year’s Eve. I truly love that ball in Times Square. Maybe it is, in fact, magical and maybe the Goo Goo Dolls said it best.