Tonight is New Year’s Eve and it’s about darn time.
If there’s anything we need right now, it is a new year. The old one felt like we were run across a cheese grader for 12 months. We need a fresh new start.
It’s time to uncork your favorite beverage, shoot off firecrackers, and watch green and red fiery fountains on the driveway.
Ear-splitting whistles screech through the night, ending in giant booms, thick white smoke fills the streets. Another good reason to wear a mask. Neighbors will wander out and talk to each other who haven’t said a word to each other all year. Everyone complains about the noise and smoke while loving every minute if it.
Then, all will gaze up in wonderment at the colorful dazzling fireworks exploding above them, wondering how regular people can afford fireworks at $300 a pop. Did you get that? Pop.
As midnight approaches, the crackling firecrackers go off nonstop for a full hour, a few booms go off now and then.
You close all the doors to dim the noise and turn on the tube to watch the big New Year’s Ball drop in Times Square. The crowds will be thinned out this year streets but the ball will drop and everywhere we will still hear the count down “3-2-1 HAPPY NEW YEAR!” and everyone continues partying until dawn, when `they wake in the morning with the traditional hangover.
That’s how we celebrate New Year’s Eve here. About as wild as we get is to drink a little extra beer and wine and set off fireworks, but it’s tame compared to New Year’s Eve in other countries.
New Year’s Eve in Mexico is wild. They throw a bucket of water out the window, followed by their furniture. Look out for falling chairs!
Not to be outdone, in Denmark on New Year’s Eve, they smash plates and cups against their neighbor’s front door. It makes sense, Denmark is the land of the Vikings.
You might like to visit Thailand on the big night. They smear white mud all over themselves and dance half-naked in the streets. In Canada, they jump into an ice-cold pond in the snow. I think I’d choose the white mud over the icy pond.
In South Korea, they write their wishes for the New Year and let them fly away with balloons. Of course, China where they invented firecrackers shoots them off from one end of the country to the other.
In Belgium, the farmers go out at midnight and wish their cows a happy new year. I think they need a dating service. In Turkey, their big New Year’s thrill is to put on red underwear. Go figure.
But you don’t have to wear red underwear or throw water out the window, or even talk to cows. You can write a list of resolutions if you want, but in these busy times, all you have to do is continue being the good person you are and try to be a little better next year. There’s a New Year’s resolution you can keep.
Happy New Year. Hau’oli Makahiki Hou!
Dennis Gregory writes a bi-weekly column for West Hawaii Today and welcomes your comments at makewavess@yahoo.com