At this point, Americans can’t agree on much, but we can all agree that New Year’s Eve is almost always a letdown. Even the roisterous college kids of our acquaintance report this night of forced revelry and existential despair to be an annual drag. And this is why we are warming to an increasing trend we’ve observed on the South Fork scene toward quieter and cozier gatherings and outings for the day after, New Year’s Day.
Reading old editions of The Star in the archive, you can trace the ways in which New Year’s rituals and celebrations evolved over the decades. It’s never been a stagnant holiday. In 1888, as The Star took toddler steps into its third year of publication, there was a front-page report bemoaning the fading out of the old tradition of going on neighborly “calls” for New Year’s. (Apparently Mrs. Grover Cleveland and her husband, the president, were old-fashioned and opened the White House — which they’d decorated with candles and flowers — to callers who came rambling from place to place.) As we head into 2026, let’s raise a glass to the new tradition of a New Year’s foray into quietness and cozy reflection by the light of day.
Just for example, you might pack some egg sandwiches and cinnamon buns in a basket and drive out to Montauk Point to see the dawn break on Jan. 1 behind the Lighthouse. Drink in the dawning light of optimism and beauty. Or, wrap yourself, your kids, and the family dog lavishly in woolens and boots and take a ritual long walk on the ocean beach, following it with a hot buttered rum for the adults and a hot cocoa with marshmallows for the littles. Or, host a covered-dish brunch of leftovers and ask the guests to bring a short poem to read aloud. (That sets a certain tone for a more thrifty and yet more thoughtful 2026.)
The expectations for a Jan. 1 ritual are so much lower, and — unlike the 10-9-8 countdown on Dec. 31 — it’s almost certain not to force you into a depressive spiral of thoughts about what you lack, what you failed to achieve over the previous 12 months, or how far our American Republic has fallen. The light of day is also a much better time to make more reasonable, more modest New Year’s resolutions and to leave the grudges of 2025 behind.