Let’s go: Christmas trees in supermarkets, Santa Clauses at McDonald’s. We are trying to create, catch, live the coming of the New Year as a holiday. And it gets worse and worse. Because joy and fun come only when everything is good in relations with oneself. And instead of sorting out our lives, we eat neuroses with mayonnaise and wonder why the New Year does not bring renewal. Preparation for it has long turned into a holiday, where the attributes absorbed the content.
Here, it seems, they only bought new pencil cases for children by September 1 and shoes «for autumn» — for themselves, and someone has already hung a New Year’s garland in the window, and it flashes irregularly at the balcony opposite, where a woman in a pink bathrobe always smokes. Two years in the same place.
Or maybe it seems to me that it is not rhythmic? Maybe I lost the rhythm and therefore I think it’s too early to prepare for the New Year. Because what is the use of stormy preparation, if we only know how to prepare, but we don’t know how to rejoice and let the new into our lives at all. And Monday after Monday, year after year, it turns out to be zilch, and not a new life.
You open the window, two snowflakes fly into the room. So what? Snow is not New Year’s yet. Then someone’s grandmother or nanny can’t stand it, cut out such a large snowflake with holes from paper, but not one, and stick it on the glass. Because you desperately want a holiday and a reason for joy. And more comfort, like in a picture from a book with Christmas stories.
Sometimes you catch something like that in the evening — moody: the snow is falling, the lantern is shining, the bushes are casting shadows — and then you post it on Instagram (an extremist organization banned in Russia).
And of course, I want it to be somewhere exactly like on a postcard: a house covered with snow, the path is cleared, and smoke rises from the chimney. But we are in the city and therefore we sculpt snowflakes on the windows, which, by the way, you can buy ready-made in the household, already on glue and in sparkles. And a picture, although a gif with a cozy house in snowdrifts and luminous windows, can be better on Facebook (an extremist organization banned in Russia). Likes and mimimi…
But there is no holiday feeling.
The right outfits, the right parties, the right meals on culinary sites
In the cold marble halls of office buildings, without waiting for the first natural snowflakes, reindeer on wire frames start up and right there, artificial Christmas trees, like flavor enhancers, and around, of course, empty boxes with bows, in bright wrapping paper. Like gifts. And lights, lights in energy-saving garlands. Symbols of the commercial New Year and the same Christmas. There is nothing to say about shops: New Year’s Eve hysteria is the engine of trade. Hope for change always sells well.
Then, ah! — Live Christmas trees have already been brought in. I want to come up, sniff, pick off the resin from the barrel, rub the needles in my palms … You try to get involved. There is no holiday feeling.
And then it starts to boil around: “Oh, how difficult it is to choose gifts for everyone!”, “But to pack! Horror! ”,“ And they sent me a link to the site — there you can order any extreme as a gift ”,“ What do astrologers advise? What colors to celebrate the New Year? Horror, I don’t have a yellow dress!”, “Are you flying somewhere to celebrate the New Year? Where to where?”, “Now it’s too late to look for something, New Year’s tours are redeemed for six months or a year”, “We booked a table. No, everything is already taken there, this is SUCH a place!
«Let’s give him a figurine of a pig — this is a symbol of the coming year.» And then these herds of pigs lie around computers, gathering dust.
The right outfits, the right parties, the right dishes on culinary sites, “as you meet, so you spend …”, “not HOW, but with WHOM”! And with whom? With whom? — also a serious, debatable question … And it seems that it’s not a holiday that comes to us, but the end of the world.
Actually, it’s raining on the 31st, but it doesn’t matter anymore, because we are packed with artificial snow and artificial “rains” and, tired, who flies to the Maldives, who buys a bottle of cognac alcohol for a promotion in Pyaterochka and celebrates, celebrates to the full indigestion…
And there is no joy.
Because joy does not come from serpentine on the mirror and well-salted cucumbers on the table. Because all this bullshit is more empty — the eternal anticipation, which is tastier than tasting, this eternal preparation and the solemn transition from the supposedly old to the supposedly new, this initiation, skillfully furnished with totems — candles and the clink of glasses.
All this can and should beautify life, but if life itself is only an expectation: Fridays, vacations, the New Year, then where does the pleasure from the process come from? It takes much more mental strength and determination to update, reset, fresh news and events than to hang glass icicles and drink champagne. But champagne is usually limited to everything.
Those who do not drown their dreams and abilities in the bustle of days, in compromises, consumerism celebrate best of all.
And those who celebrate the best are those who bring change into their lives and do things again and again — not according to the calendar, but out of necessity. Who has no time to prepare for something for a long time or put it off — he is very busy today. Who feels in his place, is involved in the process, knows that he is doing something important, at least for himself.
Who is interested in living in principle, regardless of the weather, nature, any conventions and contexts. And who has not drowned his desires, dreams, abilities in the bustle of days, in compromises, consumerism. And because of the many events in his life, he doesn’t really notice: the holiday is official there today according to the calendar, a weekend or a weekday. What?! New Year? Again? Great! Let’s celebrate! Wow and all that.
One of my acquaintances, a saxophonist, once came from a New Year’s event in high spirits and said something wonderful: “We played with an accordionist in a hospital, at a nurses’ corporate party. Ooooh! They are! They have faces… And smiles… Real, human. And in white coats. The age range is from 20 to 80. We play them different calm, background, so as not to interfere with the buffet table. We play, we play, and then a lady comes up and says resolutely: is it possible to do something of this kind dance? We think — wow. And they gave them a dance. What has begun! How they danced! I haven’t seen this for a long time: fun, no show off, no show off, but how beautiful it is! I even closed my eyes so as not to get involved and somehow be able to continue playing. But they have a serious job, the sisters. They are there to save lives. Well, they need to rest … And they treated Seryoga and me both as musicians and as men. Sincerely. And we left.»
We danced and went on with our lives.
We fit into the new year like old slippers
But for the majority, on January 2, the tree begins to crumble, a toy, even a small fish, slides onto the carpet from a branch, and this is where the New Year ends. With the thought “something needs to be changed”, you lie and lazily watch the first episode of “The meeting place cannot be changed” and hear that the snake bracelet with the emerald eye has disappeared, although the day before yesterday you already watched the phrase “And now the Humpbacked One!” …
The weekend ends, the “new happiness” somehow does not come by itself. You fit into the new year like in old slippers, endure post-holiday depression on your feet, and by May 1 you wash windows, scrape a snowflake from a window pane and scold children for the fact that the glue is too strong. Well, who plants a snowflake on the «Moment»?