Good StuffLifestyle

New Year, So What?

By Liz Gunn || I am going to start by completely contradicting myself. I love New Year’s Eve. Any holiday that involves champagne, fireworks and kissing can’t be all bad. It’s also a great excuse for a party, and well, I like planning parties. New Year’s Day is also pretty…

LIZ GUNNBy Liz Gunn || I am going to start by completely contradicting myself. I love New Year’s Eve. Any holiday that involves champagne, fireworks and kissing can’t be all bad. It’s also a great excuse for a party, and well, I like planning parties.

New Year’s Day is also pretty high on my list of holidays I enjoy. Food, football and lots of naps are usually on my agenda. I rarely get out of my pajamas before noon, if at all.

I love the traditions of a New Year’s Eve and Day celebration. Watching Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve (now hosted by Ryan Seacrest), at least in part, counting down to midnight and sharing a kiss to ring in the new year. On New Year’s Day in the South, it’s all about what you eat…and football.

Most southerners eat greens, usually collards, for financial fortune.  We eat pork, sometimes in more than one form, for prosperity. And we eat black eyed peas, in the form of Hoppin’ John, for good luck. Some people eat one pea for every day of the new year, but I don’t take it that far. The story is that black-eyed peas were first discovered during the Civil War when resources were extremely limited and they kept some families alive, consequently being seen thereafter as lucky.

Throw in some cornbread and you’ve got yourself one fine meal to start the year. I don’t really buy into all the folklore, I just like the food. I’ve eaten the same meal for more than 30 years now, and like most people some years have been better than others. I’m still here though and that seems pretty lucky to me, so I won’t chance it.

When you think about it, a “new” year is a strange thing to celebrate. Time doesn’t stop and begin again, of course, we just turn the page and start writing 2015 in place of 2014. Time is perpetual.

The only reason the so-called new year begins in the middle of the winter season is because the Catholic church adjusted the calendar in 1582 to make sure that Easter always lands in the spring. Am I the only one who thinks it would make more since if the new year coincided with the first day of a season? Maybe so, since no one has challenged it in more than 400 years. I digress.

Alas, people do use the dawn of a new year as a time to hit the reset button and begin again – myself included. I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions, but I do think about what went right and what went wrong in the last 12 months, and how I can make the next 12 better.

My thoughts about making changes in the new year are usually very general like, “get organized” or “spend less”. Experts will tell you this is a bad plan. If you are going to make real resolutions, make them as specific as possible. You’ll have a much better chance at keeping them.

My wish for all of you, and I mean this with the utmost sincerity, is that you make next year better than the last. For yourself and for those around you. Cheers!

**Also, here is a New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day college football schedule for those who are interested. (EST)

new years day football

 

LIZ GUNN is a wife, mom, travel enthusiast, food snob, daydreamer and lifelong Gamecock fan. A graduate of the University of South Carolina, she lives in Columbia, S.C. with her husband and daughter.
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44 comments

Why December 31, 2014 at 9:16 am

Same Shit, Different Day

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Toyota Kawaski December 31, 2014 at 9:20 am

Can we see the NYE Panties?

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Squishy123 December 31, 2014 at 1:01 pm

Why do you want to see granny panties?

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Brain Fart December 31, 2014 at 9:21 am

I didn’t even have to read this to know it is inane, without much of a point, probably has a typo or two and a waste of thirty seconds. How’d I do?

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Lonely is.... December 31, 2014 at 3:04 pm

Stick in the mud !!!

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FastEddy23 December 31, 2014 at 9:45 am

Why Brain Kawaski? Disgruntled because none of you have a job? (You all posted after 9:10 AM.)

Keep your dissing of us party animals to your self, you ain’t getting laid tonight with that attitude, you still won’t have a job tomorrow …

For the rest of us, I predict that 2015 will be a banner year. The economy will continue to turn upwards, markets up in a true Santa Rally in mid January, virgin republicrats and a few wild eyed fiscal conservatives with a push from the Tea Parties may actually succeed in killing BummerCare, may stop or at least slow inflation, non-g’ment job growth will (finally) begin to happen, … and if we all hold our tongue in cheek just right, we might see a change for the better in tax “law”.

Happy, Joyous, Prosperous New Year to Everyone …

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shifty henry December 31, 2014 at 9:57 am

(—– IMPORTANT MESSAGE TO FOLLOW —–)

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shifty henry December 31, 2014 at 1:44 pm

My best hopes and wishes for health, wealth, peace and harmony for all of you folks, including your families and friends.

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Trout R Limited December 31, 2014 at 3:27 pm

Thanks Shifty and the same to you and yours in multiples.

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TontoBubbaGoldstein December 31, 2014 at 4:29 pm

My best hopes and wishes for health, wealth, peace and harmony for all of you folks, including your families and friends.

Right back at cha, Homie!!!

[Boomerang 843 803 864]

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snickering January 1, 2015 at 2:52 pm

Thanks Shifty. My resolution is to start watching sports (football mostly) and stop watching politics. Beginning tomorrow.

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shifty henry January 1, 2015 at 3:00 pm

One of my resolutions also is to stop following politics in depth for two years. This is to lessen my anxieties and stress about things I can’t do anything about. I have no interest now in running for any political office.

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Flip Coscoe December 31, 2014 at 9:59 am

The only thing to look forward to next year is the Republican take over of Congress. Finally, they will repeal Obamacare, give tax cuts to everybody, shrink the federal government and get rid of gay marriage. It’s going to be a great year…unless your a whinny ass liberal!

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The Colonel December 31, 2014 at 10:10 am

Dream on – Republicans are scared of their own shadow as demonstrated by Boehner and crew’s punting of the budget for another year. If Boehner and McConnell had the testicles they were allegedly born with they should have simply CR’d us into February and then taken an ax to the abortion we call the federal budget. Of course we’d have to have had a budget to cut, we haven’t had one of those since oh, when.. yeah that’s right 1997.

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Flip Coscoe December 31, 2014 at 11:03 am

Spoken like a true RINO. You quitting?

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The Colonel December 31, 2014 at 12:04 pm

Nope – just facing reality

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Rocky December 31, 2014 at 1:19 pm

Well said Colonel. Looking forward to Amnesty in February and a fully funded budget plan for Obama’s FY2016 to pass in September. The GOP don’t want to rock the boat. Want to know what the GOP will do with their new Majority in the Congress? Ask Obama – they’ll do whatever he asks.
But, but, but we won the midterms Mommy.

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buffett December 31, 2014 at 2:59 pm

I’m sure you are 100% correct. Why bother voting if both parties serve only the interests of the billionaires?

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Smirks December 31, 2014 at 10:49 am

they will repeal Obamacare, give tax cuts to everybody, shrink the federal government and get rid of gay marriage.

Strike one, strike two, strike three, strike… four?

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Flip Coscoe December 31, 2014 at 11:12 am

Obamacare will die after ruling from SCOTUS on ‘exchanges’. States are already overwhelmed with Medicaid enrollments and doctors not accepting new patients when reimbursements were cut.Thanks to Obama’s E/O on immigration we will not have any kind of reform. Obama got suckered and fucked the illegals. No path to citizenship OR voting.

Gay marriage? 2% of the country identify themselves as perverted or mentally ill. I say who cares. I have evolved on this issue. If gay marriage keeps em from becoming pedophiles or harming animals I say go for it.
Government should stay out of it and I should not have to hire or rent an apartment to a gay married couple as it is against my religious values.

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Buz Martin December 31, 2014 at 12:31 pm

Does this mean that you and Big T will stop living in sin and will finally tie the knot?

Just don’t tie it too tight over his blow-hole, and you will be OK.

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Flip Coscoe December 31, 2014 at 12:48 pm

That from someone that admits he likes to wear dresses, lipstick and high heels. Oh my!!!!

Buz Martin December 31, 2014 at 3:13 pm

Admitted that where? In a satirical post (labeled as such) on MySpace in 2009, featuring a goofy headshot done as a joke by my ex-girlfriend 5 years earlier? Dude, I’ve got a full beard now and would not look good in makeup. lol Plus I have arthritic knees and ankles, so high heels would kill me. I’ve never worn a dress in my life. All you can do is mimic born liar Tom G. Davis’ bullshit from years ago on The SNOB. You really know nothing of me at all that is based in reality.

Why not go after all the hetero men who have ever been in “womanless” wedding or beauty pageant events to raise money for charity? Why not go after every straight comedian who has ever gotten up in “drag” for a laugh, such as Milton Beryl, Flip Wilson, etc.?

Sure, I have no basis for believing you and that Lawrence fuckhead are gay, it’s just fun to goad you about the way you rhetorically smooch up on each other.

Why do you give a flying fuck if I criticize poltiicians and other public figures? I am non-partisan in my criticism. It has included Obama, Clyburn, Sharpton, Cosby, Al Gore, Vince Sheheen, Dick Harpootlian, and other Democrats, in addition to Republicans.

You’re just a fanatical, obsessive partisan idiologue who gets off on anonymous ad hominem attacks, and for some reason you’ve singled me out for special attacks on two blogs now. What the fuck is your deal? Why is it any skin off your miserable ass if I speak my mind?

At least I have the balls to do it AS MYSELF — balls that you clearly lack.

9" December 31, 2014 at 11:33 pm

You know,whenever I see a guy sucking a dick,it makes me think he’s gay.’Flip’ also reminds me of some old gay terminology.Will he flip? And I am sure Flip will flip.

Flip Coscoe December 31, 2014 at 11:02 am

Rocky/Deo please stop this shit or Sandi will be returning. You and Smirks exchange ‘vows’ tonight and forget about Flip.

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TontoBubbaGoldstein December 31, 2014 at 4:33 pm

…they will repeal Obamacare, give tax cuts to everybody, shrink the federal government and get rid of gay marriage….unless your a whinny ass liberal!

TBG is chomping at the bit to see all this happen….

*snorts*

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Sailor December 31, 2014 at 9:29 pm

Good luck with that, asshole!

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FastEddy23 January 15, 2015 at 9:30 pm

… one can hope and pray for that change …

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Tazmaniac December 31, 2014 at 10:25 am

I’m a fan of two teams…….The Gators and whomever is playing Ohio State. ROLL TIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!

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shifty henry December 31, 2014 at 10:39 am

(^) — that is only for ‘Bama!

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Tazmaniac December 31, 2014 at 10:49 am

Ok, you got me. What is (^) ?

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Smirks December 31, 2014 at 10:50 am

A boob with an erect nipple?

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The Colonel December 31, 2014 at 11:50 am

A taint?

shifty henry December 31, 2014 at 1:37 pm

hah! – another good one for my permanent joke file!

shifty henry December 31, 2014 at 1:36 pm

hah! — that goes in my permanent joke file!

shifty henry December 31, 2014 at 1:36 pm

For goshen’s sake, TAZ, that is for my “upvote” to you for “Bama” (I didn’t want any Gator fans thinking I cared about their team)…..

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Flip Coscoe December 31, 2014 at 11:00 am

Ain’t gonna happen. 3rd string qb Cardelle Jones can throw the ball 70 yards on his knees and will shred Alabama.

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Torch December 31, 2014 at 12:02 pm

You can tell she’s from the lower part of the state. Only hoppin john we got in the upstate is the guy that got cracked in the nuts by the errant pool cue.

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Buz Martin December 31, 2014 at 12:33 pm

Or the guy that got a hot chili pepper shoved up his ass by a hooker, rather than the gerbil he had requested.

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Buz Martin December 31, 2014 at 12:27 pm

Excuse me,but if black-eyed peas were discovered during the civil war because they were keeping some families alive, doesn’t that mean that those families had already discovered them?

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Squishy123 December 31, 2014 at 12:59 pm

“Any holiday that involves champagne, fireworks and kissing can’t be all bad.”

Change champagne to beer and you’ve just described every redneck’s dream evening.

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shifty henry December 31, 2014 at 11:22 pm

Two drunks saw a guy siphoning gas from a car. One said to the other, “I hope I never get that thirsty!”

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Ha ha HAPPY NEW YEAR! December 31, 2014 at 3:25 pm

We were always told that the greens represented cash and that the peas represent coin. Collards and peas have always been a tradition in my family and one that my wife and I continue to enjoy. However, we were also told that eating meat with said peas and greens would spoil that good luck and prosperity. We, like yourself, enjoy some pork or fowl anyway. My resolution is to be a better Catholic and all that this entails.

Now that I’m in my last 40, I put on the noise canceling headphones and head to bed at 9 p.m (blasted fireworks). By midnight it is time to get up for a potty run. I stop by and give the wife a kiss and a hug, watch the ball come down, kill a couple of glasses of champagne and say good morning and hit the sack. By the time the kids, if they are home, and the wife, crawl out of bed around noon I have everything on the smoker, the stove doing it’s work and the TV tuned in.

Sometimes, I miss the parties but I never miss the hangovers and the drunk drivers.
Have a Happy New year Liz . You do manage to take the edge off around here.

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snickering January 15, 2015 at 10:42 pm

The New Year is my favorite Holiday. It represents a new beginning, the hope you can make other people happy. It is the only Holiday I actually love.

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