New Year's resolutions anyone?

Hi neighbors. Almost a week into 2008, have you already broken any of those New Year's resolutions? Maybe you haven't really made any yet. There's no need to rush into it.

Surely there is no rule regarding when they should be made is there? I would think any time in the month of January. That would give us more time to ponder what we want to dedicate ourselves to for an entire year.

A year is a long time after all, and stating, even if just to ourselves, that we intend to do or not do something for a whole 12 months is a big commitment and shouldn't be entered into lightly.

I made a resolution to find out more about why we make resolutions and what time periods they should cover. Many people think they should be made in stages with short range goals within an overall long range plan. Most folks think resolutions should be flexible (helps not break them so soon) and that they should offer a lot of leniency in keeping them. An example in the first case could be "I'll lose ten pounds by Valentine's Day" or in the second option, "I'll try to lose some weight this year."

How did we get started doing this anyway? Whose idea was it that we should try to improve ourselves each year?

The celebration of New Year's Day and making New Year's resolutions is an old idea. As a matter of fact, celebrating the new year is one of the oldest holidays. Ancient Babylon started the custom about 4,000 years ago. Around 2,000 B.C. they began a new year near the end of March. They didn't have a calendar, but March was a good choice to start afresh as that's when spring begins and new crops are planted.

The Babylonian new year's celebration lasted eleven days and was probably made today's American celebration look pretty tame in comparison.

Although we use January 1, there is no logical reason to do so, other than to 'fix' the Roman calendar. It seems that tampering with the calendar to establish holidays and weekdays that reflected each new emperor's particular vanity got the calendar pretty messed up.

In 153 B.C. the Roman senate declared January 1 to be the beginning of the new year. However, emperors continued to tamper until Julius Caesar establish the Julian Calendar in 46 B.C. There was a little drawback, in order to synchronize the calendar with the sun, he had to let the previous year last for 445 days. Sounds like the guys before him really did some heavy duty tampering.

At first the early Catholic Church condemned New Years celebrations as paganism, but eventually assimilated that holiday along with many others, into its own religious observances. That change didn't come easily nor early though.

All during the Middle Ages the Church refused to allow celebration of New Year's Day. Our modern concept of celebrating Jan. 1 in the manner we do has only been popular for the last 400 years.

The Babylonians also started the notion of making New Year's resolutions. They did give themselves 11 days to think them up though. Some of their resolutions may have 'hurt' a little more than ours. The most popular resolution was to return borrowed farm equipment.

That may have been why they extended the holiday for 11 days. That was enough time to plow your own field before returning your neighbors plow.

The tradition of using a baby to signify the new year was begun in Greece around 600 B.C. It was their tradition at that time to celebrate their god of wine, Dionysus, by parading a baby in a basket, representing the annual rebirth of that god as the spirit of fertility. Early Egyptians also used a baby as a symbol of rebirth.

Using a baby image with a New Year's banner on it was brought to early America by the Germans. It had been a popular image there since the fourteenth century.

I couldn't find any reference as to why the old man was used to celebrate the old year. Using an elderly figure to represent the year just passing makes a good compliment to using a baby for the new year. I don't know why an old woman couldn't represent the passing year as well as an old man. Maybe we should change that.

Until the next time friends remember New Year's resolutions, whether long term or short term, need to be about some change you can live with. Maybe you should just returned that borrowed shovel.