Being cynical about holidays and celebrations has become popular, but here's why everyone needs symbolic days of celebration and reflection.

TRANSCRIPT
 Hello everyone, and welcome to Elsewhere with G. My name is Guyomar, and today I’d like to take you back to 2010, to the 31st of December 2010 (in fact, it was 2006, I made a mistake). This was the first time that I missed New Year celebrations with my family. Every year, we did something special. We had a special dinner that my mum had made, that she’d spent all day preparing. It was different every year, but it was delicious. We also set off fireworks in the backyard, played music, drank champagne – it was a special time, and it was one of the few times that the whole family – my parents, my brother and I – sat down to together for dinner, and spent time just chatting around the table, spent time in each other’s company.

I missed this because I was upstairs, in my dad’s office, where the computer was. At the time, I didn’t have my own personal computer. It was a shared family computer. So I was upstairs, working at the computer, writing my essays to submit the applications, the college applications that were due on January 1st. As usual, I’d left them until the last minute. Well, I’d left the essays until the last minute. I’d prepared everything else. I’d sent off the necessary documents – my transcript, letters of recommendation – but the essays, I’d struggled with, and I worked on them that night. And I remember my mum kept calling me to come down to eat something. My dad also asked me what was going on.

They understood that I had to work on my application, but it’s one of the things that I really regret. I remember coming down after they’d rung in the New Year. I ate alone. My mum had saved me a plate, of course. But yeah, I’d missed the togetherness. I’d missed setting off the first fireworks, kissing each other as the New Year came in. I wish I’d given more importance to celebrating that holiday. And since New Year is just around the corner, since it’s the festive season, I thought I’d talk about that today. I know that these days it’s popular to be cynical about the holidays, about Christmas, about New Year, about festivities. There’s a lot of talk about consumerism and the folly of celebrating some randomly chosen day. I understand all that. I understand that perspective, but I also think that we need symbolic days.

We need days that are symbolic to us, that force us to reflect on what we’ve done in recent months and think about what we’d like to do. I don’t think that we can manage thinking about long, indefinite stretches of time. I think we need markers, like these symbolic markers of the passage of time to reflect on our lives and our direction. Today, I had a Russian lesson, and my teacher had chosen the theme of holidays, of New Year.  She shared a very interesting quote with me in the lesson she’d prepared: «Как встретишь новый год, так его и проведешь.» As you start the new year, as you meet the new year, so you will spend it. So, what you do, the way you are, your attitude on the first day of the year will set tone for the rest of it. I think it's…maybe it's a little  supersitious, but I find it, I don't think… 

I think it maybe a bit superstitious, but I also think it's true that where we are mentally at the start – the symbolic start – really matters. It sets the tone for everything else that we'll do. So if there are things you'd like to change, if there are things you'd like to do, if there's a way in which you envision the time ahead, maybe start now. You know, maybe start doing those things now, and organize yourself to the best of your ability, so that on New Year's Eve, as you ring in the New Year, everything's in place to create the conditions for you to continue along that path. That's what I'm planning to do, anyway. I'm going to try to put some things in order, and yeah, get ready for the rest of it.

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Symbolic dates and the shape of days to come (click here for the transcript)

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