I missed a golden opportunity to post last week about my favorite day of the year: Christmas Eve. While Halloween is fun (I love dressing up, and who doesn’t love candy?) Christmas Eve has long held the number one spot for me as far as favorite days of the year. There’s all the lead up to it: the decorations, the shopping, the Christmas songs on the radio, the holiday baking, watching the holiday-themed movies, wrapping presents… I love Christmas Eve because of all the days of the year, it has the most potential, the most expectant hope and joy for the future. I think I love the promise of Christmas Eve more than I love Christmas Day itself.

But Christmas Eve came and went without me commenting on it this year. No big deal. I made cookies, watched movies, and opened presents with the family. It was good.

Now we are entering the time period I like the least of the entire year–the run up to New Year’s Eve.

I dislike New Year’s Eve for many reasons–I’m noise-sensitive and dislike loud holidays in general. I don’t enjoy crowds, I’m not a party-girl, and I have dogs–who also cower during noisy holidays. Shield me from the fireworks and blaring horns. If I do stay up past midnight, it’s because I’m engrossed in a good book and don’t want to put it down just yet.

But I also dislike the year-end retrospectives. Guess what, you’re about to turn another year older. Here’s who died in the past year. Here’s what happened in the world. Here’s what I accomplished in 2018. Cheers to 2019. Rah, rah.

I guess I dislike these kinds of posts because they place such emphasis on the posts we’re already making: trips we’ve taken, achievements in our careers, heck, what we had for lunch today. The end-of-year period has frequently been disappointing to me because I didn’t lose 30 pounds, win the lottery, travel extensively, get nominated for a major award or hit the bestseller list. Somehow, sitting down to figure out what I did achieve stresses how little I got done besides get up, work ten hours, and come home. Day after day.

So yeah, New Year’s Eve doesn’t make the top ten list of favorite holidays. Not even close.

Only this year, as I was answering emails from various people, one of my friends shared a New Year’s Eve tradition that beats the heck out of partying too hard or sitting in front of the TV waiting for the ball to drop. She said she gets together with friends and everyone writes down something they want to leave behind from 2018–as well as what they wish for themselves in 2019–and burn the paper in a bonfire.

I love this idea.

I’ve been spending some time considering what I’d leave behind. Fear, certainly. Depression. A feeling of hopelessness, the sense that it is all downhill from here and that the best of my life is behind me. Sorrow and grief, twin anchors that have been crippling me these past few years. Self-doubt, a silent killer that has been sabotaging dreams and plans as long as I can remember.

What I wish for is a little harder. I’m not used to picturing what I want–I’ve become too good at imagining worst-case scenarios instead. But I’d definitely wish for a return of health–both mental and physical–even it it means having to work at it. Laugh at myself and with others. Put worry behind me–never once has it made a positive difference in my life, it has only done damage. Refill my creative well and dip from its clear, cold water every day. Shut the door on envy and resentment.

Not just merely exist, but actually live.

For the first time in memory, I’m actually looking forward to New Year’s Eve.

How about you? How do you celebrate the end of one year and the beginning of the next?