What’s the big deal?

We’re just days into the New Year and here I am, complaining.  Well, not really complaining.  It’s more like ‘wondering’.  Or making an observation.  Or questioning.  I’m confused, is all.  For the life of me I can’t figure out why we make such a big deal out of New Year’s Eve.  Okay, okay, okay, I get the significance of beginning a new year.  Truly I do.  But why the insistence on wearing silly hats and cranking noisemakers and watching balls drop and drinking ourselves into oblivion?  What’s the point of all that?

Speaking strictly for myself, I’ve never liked New Year’s Eve.  In fact, I kinda loathe it.  Too many people trying way to hard to have a good time.  Way too many people who can’t hold their liquor getting way too drunk.  Drunk to the point of crying, drunk to the point of sharing the most intimate details of their lives with virtual strangers, drunk to the point of making passes at their best friends’ husbands (or vice versa), drunk to the point of passing out or, even worse,