6 good reasons not to celebrate the New Year

1. Large expenses

In December 2019, the average Russian planned to spend 19,300 rubles on New Year's celebrations. This amount includes food for the New Year's table, gifts for loved ones and some entertainment. Considering that at that time the average salary in Russia did not reach 41,000 rubles, such expenses seem to be quite significant for a significant part of people.

Moreover, the matter is not limited to New Year's Eve: corporate parties are held in front of it, and then a ten-day vacation follows, during which visits begin, gatherings in cafes and restaurants, children's Christmas trees, country trips. All this also requires money, especially if you have a large family and many friends. Every fifth Russian is even ready to take out a loan to buy gifts or go on a New Year's trip.

Of course, spending a lot and having to pay off debts can make you nervous and ruin the New Year's mood. So financial difficulties or a desire to save money is a serious reason to cancel the holiday or spend it very modestly.

2. Feelings of loneliness

New Year is strongly associated with cozy family feasts and noisy friendly parties. More than 90% of Russians celebrate this holiday this way: in the circle of loved ones or in the company of friends and colleagues.

Therefore, those who have no one to spend New Year's Eve with may feel, to put it mildly, not very comfortable. It is on holidays that lonely people feel most vulnerable against the background of general fun and unity. Perhaps that is why the end of December and the beginning of January are not only the time of fragrant tangerines and flickering garlands, but also the period when the New Year's depression enters the scene.

If the thought that you will be sitting at the New Year's table alone is painful for you, and there is no opportunity or desire to find a company, you can not mark anything, as up to 4% of Russians do it. Or take a trip to a secluded place. Or go to bed, having previously bought good earplugs so that screams, music and fireworks do not interfere.

3. Family feasts

While someone suffers from loneliness, someone, on the contrary, can be driven crazy by their own relatives. Especially if family relationships cannot be called harmonious. Psychologists and doctors say that communication with unpleasant relatives sometimes even leads to physical ailment: chills, fever, nausea, increased blood pressure.

So if the feast is not your joy and you would like to avoid them, you can safely do without them. And either choose a different format of the holiday, or not celebrate it at all.

4. Non-holiday mood

It is only in childhood that the New Year almost always seems magical, warm and joyful. When we grow up, a good mood and anticipation of a miracle, unfortunately, do not look at the calendar at all and do not come to order. Even if you decorate a Christmas tree, buy a sweater with deer, hang garlands all over the place and spread tangerines. As a result, the New Year's celebration sometimes turns into a bland and painful obligation: I don't want to celebrate at all, but it seems like it should.

So, don't. The number "31" on the calendar does not oblige you at all, as do the crowds of people on the streets, New Year's songs in stores and deafening fireworks outside the window. You have every right to do your own business on New Year's Eve, and then go to bed.

If you want, reschedule the celebration and celebrate it when the mood appears. Or celebrate an alternate New Year's date, such as Chinese or Jewish.

To some, such decisions may seem strange, but the holiday should not be forced, and you must first of all take care of your own feelings.

5. Harm to the environment

Any major holiday is a blow to nature. People eat significantly more than usual, use mountains of wrapping paper and generate catastrophic amounts of garbage.

As a rule, during the pre-New Year's race we don't think about such things. But for eco-activists and those worried about the growing carbon footprint, landfills and unreasonable consumption, it would be quite logical to abandon the New Year celebration. Or conduct it in an environmentally friendly “green” format.

6. Summing up the results for the year

Even if you do not write down goals for the year in a notebook in order to cross them out to the chimes, the New Year is still perceived as a kind of milestone, a line that must be drawn in order to assess how far you have come.

For many, this can be pretty upset or angry. Simply because it is far from always possible to achieve your goals, and an extra reminder of your own shortcomings and failures is unpleasant.

A good option would be not to focus specifically on the date and not perceive December 31 as the end of the reporting period.