Happy F*ckin’ New Year! 🙂

Don’t ya just love New Year’s! 😊 A happy reminder of how old you’re getting and the start of the fun of having to write a new year on your checks and job applications!

It’s the wonderful time of the year here in the Northern Hemisphere when we’re freezin’ our collective b*lls and t*ts off! 😒

Why do we celebrate this particular holiday?

Well, people for centuries have marked the beginning of the new calendar year in various ways. In the Gregorian calendar, New Year occurs on January 1st. Some cultures use a lunar calendar (instead of a solar one), and some use a lunisolar one. These include the Chinese New Year, the Islamic New Year, the Tamil New Year, and the Jewish New Year. For instance, the traditional Chinese calendar is a lunisolar one, one in which both the position of the sun and and the phase of the moon are taken into account. The first day of Chinese New Year begins on the new moon that appears between January 21st and February 20th.

Because of global time zones, the new year moves progressively around the globe, starting at the Line Islands in Micronesia, just west of the International Date Line.

The Line Islands

From there, this particular holiday turns into world dance party! 😁

From this auspicious beginning of the new year in the Pacific party islands we arrive at the amazing town of Orange Massachusetts, which was named in honor of William of Orange, who was the sovereign Prince of Orange from birth, Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel in the Dutch Republic from 1672, and King of England, Ireland, and Scotland from 1689 until his death in 1702. He ruled Great Britain and Ireland with his wife, Queen Mary II, and their joint reign is known as that of William and Mary, as any school child knows.

So on addition to being a British sovereign, he was the lord and master of the Low Countries, and trust me, you don’t get much lower than old Willy! 😀 And Orange Massachusetts? It is a veritable landlocked Ibiza, a semi-tropical paradise warmed by the sultry waters of the Millers River, “The Party Capital of Central Massachusetts.”

Orange MA Debauchery Fest ‘02

This New Year’s Eve we visited this enchanted place and it was a veritable winter wonderland with fun for all ages. They had pretty Christmas lights and some ice sculptures, essentially a mini version of the First Night celebrations in Boston.

It was all really festive and we had a good time. The even had a nice bonfire which was great to keep warm and they had these two dudes chucking pallets on the blaze to keep it going. It was a return to Guy Fawkes Bonfire Night which actually was once celebrated in New England by the way: https://historicipswich.net/2022/11/14/guy-fawkes-day/#:~:text=The%20Puritans%20who%20settled%20in,thus%20remove%20Protestants%20from%20government.

Then there was the piece de resistance of the whole evening’s festivities: the fireworks! 🙂

Huzzah! 😃 It was the most magnificent thing I’ve ever seen! Well actually it wasn’t. I’ve seen much better displays on my time here on this planet you call earth 🌍🙂. But hey, whaddya want for New Year’s Eve anyway, the secrets of the damn universe?!