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OUR VIEW: Put down the drinks during New Year's

Excessive drinking unnecessary during holiday festivities

With a number of holidays taking place this time of year, you can see why this is often referred to as “The Festive Season.”

Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and any other holiday at this time of year is a chance to get together with relatives and celebrate, possibly with wine or spirits to go with any holiday-related meal.

However, it seems that people are constantly looking for a reason to drink. Case in point, New Year’s Eve.

It is nice to recollect and take stock on what has taken place the last 365 days – just look at what has taken place in our part of the Boundary.

Amongst this year’s notable news, the Midway mill announced an operator, dodged a financial bullet and is up and running.

Interfor announced it will upgrade its Grand Forks mill through a $19-million investment and various new councillors and school board trustees were elected in November’s municipal elections.

It is also good to optimistically look forward to the next 365, but is it really reason to get inebriated, stay up late, wear ridiculous hats, blow horns and maybe light off some fireworks as the clock strikes midnight on Jan. 1?

Are you going to celebrate when Tuesday changes to Wednesday or Wednesday to Thursday? If not why at New Year’s? It’s essentially the same thing.

A lot of people don’t even like to go out either, as they are probably more content to just stay home and ring in the new year quietly in front of the TV. To paraphrase a Dec. 29, 2010 post at the blog Annoyances, Anecdotes and Absurdities: Little Jackie Showers Regales The Curious With His Theories On Minor Nuisances And Selections From His Vast Collection Of Personal Yarns, the beginning of January doesn’t really seem like the start of anything. It is the dog days of winter.

People like to make resolutions as part of the New Year’s tradition but a number of them are likely broken before the month of January concludes.

Getting drunk on New Year’s Eve is like getting drunk on any other day of the year and while an alcoholic beverage can be nice, less drinking isn’t too bad either.