the last happy new year

I was discussing the new year's holiday this morning with Irving, the office manager at my dentist's. It was a blah holiday for me, saved from inclusion among the very worst because there were no actual deaths in the vicinity. Irving was sick with a throat thing that's been going around. We commiserated, which gave me an idea for improving New Year's Eve, the holiday with the lowest ratio of actual to anticipated pleasure.
Rather than desperately strive to redeem the old or consecrate the new, we should resolve to have a fairly but not immoderately crappy time on New Years Eve. If you don't have that year's flu already, lay in a supply of comfort food and then acquire it. If you can't catch it, simulate it. Arrange yourself on the couch with too many blankets, smoke some bad marijuana and chase it with whisky and honey. Medicate with TV. Eat too many sweet things. Be bored. Keep the cough syrup close at hand.
I would even suggest that the week between Xmas and New Years become a traditional time for minor medical procedures: colonoscopies (there will be enough time and incentive to fast after Thankschristmas), mammograms, gum cleaning. The idea is to be able to say for the fifty-two weeks following, this sucks, but at least it's not as bad as New Years Eve.