New Years: a couple of happy and care-free days without being punished

29/12/2006 Nune HAKHVERDYAN

New ideas are in demand and then start to play a major role during New Years. During the holidays, we Armenians find the money that we have worked for, saved or received thanks to our relatives living abroad. No Armenian is ready to celebrate the New Year without money. Although each person spends differently, however we all want to have money to spend because we just can’t imagine the holidays without money. We say to ourselves “no matter what”, we’re going to fill the refrigerator, eat, drink and watch TV all we want for a couple of days. Our imagination comes into play and tells us that there are other means for creating the atmosphere for a New Years’ celebration, but reality doesn’t allow us to imagine. You can spend the money, go to a restaurant and sit next to somewhat famous people and watch the performances of somewhat “stars”. Then we’ll feel good about ourselves and have something to talk about with our friends and acquaintances. But eating, drinking, listening to music and perhaps even dancing is going to be the same as it is in the “home”. There is only one twist-we will get to see live performances instead of watching it all on television and we’ll spend more money on food than at “home”. The price for one person at restaurants, cafes and clubs will be 50 dollars and that’s the minimum amount; there is no maximum because prices are unlimited. Our instinct will tell us that there is a better way to organize the New Years’ bash, but we are going to be in such a great mood to celebrate that we won’t even pay attention to our instincts. We Armenians don’t want to spend time thinking, planning or analyzing what we want to do; rather, we want to have a good time. The holidays are in full swing, we’re all getting ready to have a good time or better yet, show that we are happy. We’re not used to being stingy during those days; we want to spend as much as we need to have a good time. But since we Armenians don’t really consider ourselves happy and keep thinking about our daily problems and are busy trying to get rid of those thoughts, it seems as though the celebration is phony and incomplete. We’re going to show that we’re happy and pretend that we believe that the New Year will be lucid and time will heal everything instead of actually feeling happy and making wishes. We’re going to go out to the streets, make noise, honk the horns and deafen passer-bys with the music from our cars, light up and blow fireworks and other pyrotechnic equipment so that everyone will see that we’re having a good time and that nobody has the moral right to accuse us of anything or reproach us. We’ve earned to have a good time and be care-free these days and since you can’t be quiet and follow the rules when you’re care-free (for some happy), we have to show that we can make noise and not get punished for doing that and thus, happy at least for a couple of days.

It doesn’t matter what anyone says; that’s how we’re going to have fun. We’re going to be invited to different places, eat, drink, sing and dance. Then we’re going to have a fireworks show and the louder the sounds, the better. That’s the whole idea of New Years’. We haven’t come up with new ideas yet. Let’s go along with the “celebration marathon” of the citizens of Armenia but at the same time try to come up with more fresh, interesting ideas where we don’t have to make a lot of noise. The concerts of the “stars”, “the sad children’s Christmas trees” and the noise we make on the streets require a lot of energy and potential and that doesn’t make us stay lively or happy, rather it creates an illusion of happiness.