New Year's...

While December 31st is a few days away, I have been thinking about the sort of resolutions that I want to make this year. Each year it seems that I make (generally speaking of course) the same or a similar set of resolutions. Each year, sometime around March or April, I find myself falling back into the bad habits of the year before. It's not that I don't earnestly try to keep my resolutions, it's just that not keeping them is so much easier. Perhaps it is the knowledge that I will end up breaking most of these resolutions that I haven't really got in the habit of making grand ones.

While I enjoy the New Year's season as much as the next fellow, sometimes I just can't help but feel that the best way to bring in the New Year would be to do it quietly. After all, January 1st is always a week after December 25th, which at least for my family means a day of celebrations. Although December 25th is fast becoming just another day in the week for me, the constant adds first for Christmas followed by the adds for New Year's at what feels like almost every single store can get overwhelming at time. Being constantly exposed to all of this madness in every parking lot I enter is also far from refreshing. I'm not saying that I don't enjoy seeing all the decorations or watching all of the festivities on the television, but some years I feel that my time would be better spent in bed, either sleeping or reading a good book.

So, as December 31st gets ever closer, and the list of possible resolutions grows ever longer, I can't help but feel just slightly overwhelmed. I know that by the time New Year's Eve rolls around, I will have edited my list of resolutions down from the fifteen or so which I currently have down to a more reasonable five. I admire those that have the conviction to successfully carry out fifteen resolutions throughout the coming year. I one day hope that I have the same sort of determination. However, for the moment, if I manage to keep one out of the five resolutions I plan to make by the 31st, I will count myself very lucky.