New Year's Eve is a day and night filled with mindfulness. It's really one of the first holidays that I addressed with intention, and habits that I developed decades ago still work well today.
On New Year's Eve, we begin by reading our journals for the year. One year it made me realize how sick I was of my own whining. Another awful year, I could barely stand to review the pain of it all. But most years, I see fun and frustration in the written words. I remember lessons learned, and it helps me to set intentions for the coming year.
Then, triumphs and crap-fests of the year fresh in our minds, we write out our Good Riddance lists. Those are clearly the things we hated the most about the year. We burn them in an ashtray left over from the old cigar days. Then it's onward and upward. Dinner includes unlimited potato chips and caviar.
Lately we have ended the day by attending the New Year's Eve Night Watch at our church ... which goes from 10:30 to midnight. The sermon is powerful, the music is beautiful, and we pray and worship our way into the next years.
