new years
Image Source: playbuzz.com

Cecilia Mazanec

Freshman, Journalism major

You see the couple getting cozy in the corner of the room and you find yourself suddenly praying for the ball to drop so that the New Year can just start already. You’re also wishing that the couch you’re sitting on wasn’t so big so you didn’t feel so… alone.

Sure, a New Years kiss would be nice (heck, it would be awesome), but sharing a romantic moment isn’t necessary to make the beginning of 2015 memorable. Instead, you can:

  1. Eat

If so many of the traditions surrounding the New Year’s holiday involve food, there’s no reason why eating shouldn’t have an important role in your own celebration. From black-eyed peas in the South  to twelve grapes at midnight in Spain, people in different parts of the globe often welcome January 1st with foods that they believe will bring them luck. Find a food that means something to you or is simply delicious;  eating it can become a tradition.

And even if traditions are not your thing, there’s nothing wrong with having a good taste in your mouth as 2015 arrives. Don’t start the year off hungry.

  1. Plant a seed

The New Year is a time for both beginnings and growth. And though you certainly should go to new places and experience things you haven’t before, it’s sometimes difficult to see how you as an individual have grown throughout the year. So start something new. Go grab a pot and some soil and plant a seed of your choosing. Apart from making a statement with the plant in your dorm, you’ll be able to see how the empty looking soil has changed to a small plant by the end of the year. Maybe you’ll also be able to realize that you too are growing into something very different than what you were a year ago.

  1. Make resolutions

Before you yell at me for naming the most common activity for the New Year, please notice that tiny little “s” at the end of “resolution.” You see it? Yes, that little letter makes this idea outside the norm. Rather than making one large resolution that will be a challenge to complete or to continue as the year moves on (“I’m going to work out every day,” “I’m going to read fifty books,” etc.), you should grab a container and think about all the tiny things that you want to do in the coming 12 months.

Throughout the year, when you find yourself with time, pull out one of these tinier resolutions and accomplish it. Whether it’s “eat at that dessert place everyone talks about” or “watch a sunset on Lake Alice,” you can find comfort in completing these goals and then looking through your container at the end of the next year to see all the resolutions that you have successfully finished. .

  1. Bring out the old photos (embarrassing ones preferred)

Okay, so maybe your ideal way of spending the final moments of 2014 is not looking at how unattractive you looked back in the sixth grade, but take a different perspective: in comparison, you much better looking right now. This is a time to be thankful for time’s healing powers.  Your brace-faced yearbook shots were certainly the height of middle school glory.

But old photographs, while giving you a chance to end the year in laughter, also let you look back at everything you’ve done. By pulling out the photographs from that great summer vacation with the family or your random adventures with friends on the weekends, you can relive the best moments of 2014 and hopefully excite yourself with the possibilities of the new memories to be formed.