Is this the new year?

Where does the year begin, where does it end? (To butcher a line by Mary Oliver.)

Different cultures celebrate the new year at different times in the Gregorian calendar year. The Christian liturgical year begins in early December with the season of Advent. Chinese New Year is celebrated in late January or February, Rosh Hashanah in the fall, and the neo-pagan Samhain around November 1. Those are just a few of the celebrations going on around the world during any given year. (Read about these and more at Wikipedia.) Then there's the July-June fiscal year, used by government and many businesses in the US.

For many years my new year was marked at the beginning of the Fall semester. I went straight from graduate school to the classroom and stayed there for 30 years, so I spent almost 50 years in that August/September to June rhythm. A new year's celebration for me was a visit (or several) to the office supply store. New pencils and pens, notebooks and binders, academic calendars, crayons, and, ooh, that yummy white paper with the blue lines, just waiting for new words. As a student, I was going to do better each year. As a teacher, I started anew with the latest techniques. Always, though, the new year was about hope.

Today, on New Year's Eve, we sat around and talked about how stressful 2010 has been, and hoped that 2011 will be better. Surely the economy will improve...we'll finally see peace in the world...

Sometimes I wonder if we shouldn't celebrate New Year's Day every morning. Toss out the old day, begin again. Let the winds of change have their way with us. But let them always blow hope into our mornings.

What does the new year mean for you?