Happy New Year

Today is New Year’s Eve and I am sure everyone has special plans for the big night whether it’s getting together with family, hitting up a party (or two) and ringing in the New Year with the people they most care about.

For me, I will be staying off the roads, enjoying a quiet evening at home and probably watching TV, shocker I know, but there you have it. In fact, I’m thinking my evening will be filled with a marathon of episodes of Arrow because Santa Claus was really nice in bringing the season one DVD set to my house on Christmas. Sweet, right?

And, New Years will be spent sleeping in, reading in bed and watching – wait for it – more Arrow or whatever fun marathon I will assuredly find on television. C’mon, did you really think I would be doing anything other than watching TV, reading and sleeping? That’s a NiceGirls dream true; well at least that is this particular NiceGirl’s dream come true.

But, I would love to hear what our readers will be doing for the big day to start off 2014 in the right way; and that brings me to the theme of today’s column: New Year’s Resolutions

Many people all over the globe make resolutions at the start of each new year in the hopes of making a positive change in their life, be it for their health, their career or their family. Some promise to stop doing things that are bad for their health: smoking, drinking or even losing weight. There are countless possibilities for resolutions, it is all about your perspective and what you feel you need to do or not do.

But, where did New Year’s resolutions start? We are all raised learning how to make the resolutions, but how many of us (who aren’t big time scholars or those who just love to learn all sorts of facts) know about the origin of resolutions. I know I have never really spent much time thinking about the origins – because, quite frankly, I’m usually too TV-obsessed to think about much of anything else, but I digress.

According to an online search, a New Year’s resolution is a “promise that you make to yourself to start doing something good or stop doing something bed on the first day of the year”. There are many examples throughout time of people making these promises/resolutions such as:

• The ancient Babylonians would make promises to their gods at the start of each year that they would return borrowed objects and pay their debts;

• The Romans would began each year, making promises to the god Janus, for whom the month of January is named;

• The Knights of the Medieval era would take the “peacock vow” at the end of the Christmas season to reaffirm their commitment to chivalry;

• Those of the Jewish faith, during Rosh Hashanah through the High Holidays and culminating in Yom Kippur, reflect on their wrongdoings over the year and seek and offer forgiveness; and,

• Christians prepare for the year ahead by praying and making resolutions.

The above examples are, by far, not the only origins of the New Year’s resolutions, but they certainly lend to the understanding of where the practice originated.

As we embark on yet another New Year – where did 2013 go though, right?! – let’s all agree to be better to each other, show a little consideration in hard or difficult times and try to improve our lives at least in some small measure. And for those of us who love all things TV, let’s hope that the networks give us all the laughs, action and drama we can handle.

Happy New Year to all of our readers and may your New Year’s resolutions hold true throughout 2014!