7 Reasons That New Year’s Eve is a Highly Overrated Adult Holiday

I won’t weigh you down with how time is a construct, we all know it is a manmade idea that happened to be necessary for general organization and agricultural needs.

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However, I will explain why celebrating the idea that another year has passed is an overrated activity.

Most holidays have historic or religious importance, allowing adults to blow off steam and reflect. If we’re religious, we can look at our specific religious holidays as a way to center ourselves or remind us of what is really important. With holidays like the 4^th of July or Memorial Day, we can be reminded of the sacrifices others made that allow us the freedoms we enjoy every day (like complaining about holidays).

New Year’s Eve accomplishes nothing and runs counter to the spirit we’ve created around it. The only thing we seem to value about this time of year, is to use it as a marker, to make a change or better ourselves in some way.  That brings me to the first reason that New Year’s Eve is a highly overrated, adult holiday.

#1 – We make promises to ourselves that we famously don’t keep. We all know this is a failing proposition, and not a new one. According to Medical News Today, New Year’s Eve resolutions have their roots, going all the way back to The Babylonians, who would make pledges each New Year to pay debts. Setting and achieving goals doesn’t work this way. Any doctor will tell you that no one is going to eat less and workout more based on the calendar. Those changes only come when a person is ready. You hear it in relation to people with drinking or drug problems, they cannot make a life change until they are sick and tired of being sick and tired. For many people, this holiday is about bettering our health in some way, and we spend the first few hours of the year overeating and drinking heavily.

#2 –We drink in the morning. Outside of New Year’s Eve, when was the last time you had an alcoholic beverage after 1 AM? The answer for many people is going to be difficult, most people don’t drink alcohol in the morning and haven’t since college (not judging).  When we rung in the beginning of 2022, my neighbors were still partying at 10 AM on January 1 when I was drinking coffee and eating eggs. I wish them the best but their year is off to a ridiculous start.

#3 – We wear dumbass hats. I’m not a fan of headdress on women, and there is a small portion of men who can pull off a hat. Hats are for bald men with convertibles and cowboys who actually work on ranches and ride fences. Hats are particularly dumb when they are sold in dozens and made of paper.

#4 – New Year’s Eve is anticlimactic. There is nothing worse than a movie with a lot of hype and a piss-poor ending. That is precisely what New Year’s Eve is, a movie that doesn’t deliver. New Years is even worse really because you know the movie ends poorly and you watch it again, willingly. Once that ball drops, you kiss your loved ones, make a few phone calls and there is nothing left to do but cleanup or go to bed. The party is actually about the party ending, with the expiration date lingering in the air from the beginning.

#5 – We schedule two of the best College Football games of the year and don’t watch them. This is a frustration for sports fans but it’s a big one. Personally, I am a big college football fan. If you’re not, you might be interested to learn that two of the best (on paper) and most important college football games take place on New Year’s Eve. The two-college football playoff semifinal games are played back-to-back on NYE. They are typically very dramatic and highly anticipated face-offs. After watching all the action of the season unfold this year, I didn’t get to see any of the two semifinal games this year. I wasn’t allowed to watch them because my wife said so, she expected me to spend time with my family and who could blame her? My wife never tries to regulate my sports watching. In fact, it’s not uncommon for me to waste 6-8 hours watching college or NFL games on Saturdays and Sundays but this is different on New Year’s Eve. When I plead my case and said these are two of the most important games of the year, Erica replied “why would they schedule these games when most people can’t watch them?” It’s a very valid question and one I didn’t have an answer for.

#6 – It’s the only party we schedule all year, when we watch other people party on TV. I can’t think of a worse way to spend the first few hours of my year, than standing in Times Square, freezing is a sea of humanity. That does not stop me from watching others people do that on TV, and so do you. Why do we do it? To see Ryan Seacrest prove he’s a vampire? Watch the pop stars of the day lip-synch their songs? If we are going to televise any party in this country it should be Mardi Gras, not New Year’s in NYC.

#7 – We party in the living room. Scan your memories, really think about the best house parties you’ve ever been to. In what room did they take place? The answer is almost always the kitchen, even though that is never the intended location, it’s where we end up. Any party that takes place in the living room is inferior.

Traditions make us feel good, they give us a sense of community and structure but some are unnecessary and highly overrated. In a word, New Year’s Eve stinks.

P.S. I used “Adult” in the title and repeated it a few times in the article for a reason. If you are 22, you have every reason to celebrate everything and plenty of energy to do so. If you’re over the age of 35, celebrations and holidays are work and over celebrating comes at a great cost.