Goodbye 2008

I hope all of you have been enjoying your time with family and friends over the Christmas break. Our Christmas 2008 was one to remember, for lots of reasons! The time went by too quickly -- here we are at New Year's Eve already -- a bright, cold day.  As for tonight, we're off  to our neighbor's party to play, talk and eat until midnight. We'll drink sparkling cider and bang pots and pans with them at the stroke of midnight...

How do you ring in the new year?

Here's one of my favorite passages about New Year's. Enjoy.

 

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The last day of the
old year was one of those bright, cold, dazzling winter days, which bombard us with their brilliancy, and command our admiration but never our love. The sky was sharp and blue; the snow diamonds sparkled insistently; the stark trees were bare and shameless, with a kind of brazen beauty; the hills shot assaulting lances of crystal.

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Even the shadows were sharp and stiff and clear-cut, as no proper shadows should be. Everything that was handsome seemed ten times handsomer and less attractive in the glaring splendor; and everything that was ugly seemed ten times uglier, and everything was either handsome or ugly.

 There was no soft blending, or kind obscurity, or elusive mistiness in that searching glitter. The only things that held their own individuality were the firs--for the fir is the tree of mystery and shadow, and yields never to the encroachments of crude radiance.
But finally the day began to realize that she was growing old. Then a certain pensiveness fell over her beauty which dimmed yet intensified it; sharp angles, glittering points, melted away into curves and enticing gleams. The white harbor put on soft grays and pinks; the far-away hills turned amethyst.

"The old year is going away beautifully," said Anne.

-- Anne's House of Dreams, Chapter 16, New Year's Eve at the Light

Evening Light: Allposters.com