Happy New Year, World.

December 31, 2012 By 3 Comments

This is my favorite holiday. One of the reasons is that it’s celebrated by throngs of people hour by hour all day around the world. So, in the spirit of international celebration…

Goodbye 2012, you had so much Gangnam Style, as far as I was concerned.

Thank you to all my friends, readers, and students for such an incredible year. So many great people were a part of my life this year that I am sort of overwhelmed with gratitude when I reflect back on it. They (including maybe you) have made it amazing and one of the best of my life thus far. Enjoy some of my favorite super popular videos of this year.




See You In 2013!

Filed Under: Atheism 3 Comments
  • Kodie

    I love Jenna Marbles! Happy New Year to you. A few years ago, I spent New Year’s Eve in a bodega with the guy who would be my boyfriend until he turned into kind of a disaster. An older couple came in and bought a rose from the flower bucket then gave it to me with the saying, “Every day is New Year’s Day”. I kept that dried out rose and think of that every time I see it. But it is also a sentimental holiday for me, like packing up a whole old year in a box and opening up the new one yet to be. If something was bad, it’s over, and there is always a new potential and a new notebook – it is traditional but weird of me that I like to get a new notebook for January. I don’t write the pages like a diary or an appointment book, it’s just something to have with possibilities for anything, and I don’t look back and see what I wrote because it really does turn out to be just jotting notes and not informative or nostalgic about a particular year. One of the things that I was thinking for the past week or so, when they say “New Year’s is just around the corner,” I think to myself, it’s all round, no corners.

    • http://patheos.com/blogs/camelswithhammers/ Daniel Fincke

      I think to myself, it’s all round, no corners.

      I love it! Happy New Year! I used to write yearly recaps and wish I still took the time to do so because it’s hard to remember what you DIDN’T know before the change of a year, like what would not really start until the next year. It helps remember the limits of the past to see the reflections on the one year when it couldn’t bleed with what immediately follow it and retroactively color it. I need to go back to chronicling each year. This was some year for me.

    • Kodie

      I don’t really know how to get over the urge to mark time by numbers. My birthday is conveniently about halfway through the year, so a pretty good term to take stock periodically, but if the urge strikes you to resolve something, don’t feel compelled to wait. The dates are not in control of you. I remember the end of 1995, I thought a good amount of bad stuff happened that 1996 had to be better, but it wasn’t. Like the news reports the ups and downs, we all have high points and low points that don’t all contain themselves in a year we can wad up and throw in the bin. Some things reverberate for a few years, and sucky surprises we all know don’t wait until a more convenient time on your agenda. Anyway, I feel like 2013 is “the year”. I want to love more, I want to love again – just humanitarily, not romantically. A few things lined themselves up toward the end of December that leads me to gratitude and a new chance. It’s never over unless you give up on yourself. I think that’s what I’m going with, cautiously, into the next year. It seems to bode well, but it’s pretty random that the ramp is here, now.

      Auld Lang Syne, Aretha Franklin and Billy Preston

      (the best version IMO, Happy New Year to all) :)