Jumping Into the New Year

New Year’s is the favorite holiday of many. It gives people the chance to start fresh and commit to the saying “new year, new me.” Others dislike the culture surrounding the event, claiming it is simply a clerical date. Like it or not, come December 31, calendars will change, and festivities will commence.

One time-tested New Year’s tradition is the revered resolutions list. “I have a few New Year’s resolutions that I feel like I might really follow through on,” junior Subha Bhuiyan said. “The main one I want to focus on is being more organized because I feel like that is one of my biggest issues.”

But not everybody participates in this ritual. “I don’t really have a New Year’s resolution, mainly because I couldn’t figure out one,” junior Jessica Qiu said. Though resolutions are popular, many complain about the often unfulfillable promises.

Besides figuring out resolutions on New Year’s Eve, students have a variety of ways to keep busy during the buildup to midnight. “My friend and I [...] are both into K-pop, and since two concerts were being held virtually, we tried to decide on which one to attend,” Bhuiyan said. “Because we are fans of all the groups in both concerts, it was hard to choose.”

Unlike Bhuiyan, junior Ria Escamilla decided to celebrate New Year’s at home with family traditions and movies. “I like watching holiday movies as a final goodbye to the holidays. We also have a tradition where we eat 12 grapes to represent each month of the year, and we eat them at midnight. After that, we all knock out because of exhaustion,” Escamilla said.

Food and family both play large roles in the New Year’s celebrations of many. “Usually, my family and I invite our cousins, uncles, and aunts to our house, and we just eat and watch the countdown,” Bhuiyan said. “We usually meet at a restaurant beforehand, but this year, we ate different foods like dumplings, biryani, and Thai soup.”

Qiu also listed some favorite foods she eats to celebrate New Year’s. “Tofu, glass noodles, sliced meat like lamb or beef, fish balls, [and] chicken feet [are] usually some food we eat,” she said. “Usually, I have a lot of people from my family over, like my uncle’s family, and we eat together to have a hot pot. Because this year was different, [my] mom stayed home for New Year’s and made food like fried chicken and French fries. She made egg tarts as well.”

Few New Year’s traditions are as time-tested as the countdown. But not everybody is a fan of the custom. “I surprisingly don’t watch the countdown because it isn’t as interesting to me as other things I could be watching,” Bhuiyan said.

At the stroke of midnight, many are surrounded by loved ones, entering the new year with joy. Even though countless students couldn’t be with family this year, the entire Stuyvesant community entered 2022 with the same hope. “Though it’s not the same, all we can do is stay hopeful and wish that when we enter 2023, it’ll be on a much better note,” Bhuiyan said.