Ceremonial Saying Goodbye To 2013 & Hello To 2014

The past year was one that I was very happy to say goodbye to on so many levels: deployment, illness, accident and on and on. While I hold the joyful moments of last year close to me there was a lot to want to shove right off a cliff about last year. So I decided our family would do it up right through a farewell to the old and hello to hopes for the future ceremony.

I got on a real terror to clean early in the evening of New Year's Eve. I put on a meditation music station on Pandora and swiftly went about tidying up our bedroom from top to bottom. Boy did that feel good! Then after they finished watching a movie, The Man and The Bug joined me on our bed for our celebration.

I had cut up many, many strips of paper and gave each of us a good stack with a pen. The first assignment was to write down everything you wanted to say goodbye to about 2013. With the meditation music humming along, we each sat quietly and scribbled away on our little strips all the things we wanted outta here. It was fun to see each person, deep in thought, contemplative and working away filing a little jar with their goodbyes.

Then we turned things around and the next assignment was to write down something you wanted to see happen, do or have come to your life in 2014. Again each person quietly and with intent pondered and wrote, creating another small mountain of folded paper strips. When we were all done it was about 11:30. We then took our goodbyes to the balcony, put them in a large pot and lit them on fire.

The fire was a little more intense and smoky than I expected but we did have a pitcher of water nearby. It would have been a brilliant idea to have shut the sliding glass door to the apartment before all the smoke went inside, haha. But a few minutes with the fan, hood vent and air purifier took care of that quickly and no smoke alarms went off in the process. Once all our goodbyes were left to ashes we went inside, made a big baking sheet full of nachos and prepared for the countdown to midnight.

We put each of our 2014 wishes into a jar, along with more strips for adding more dreams as the year progresses. At midnight we toasted with Jones blue raspberry lemonade after noshing on nachos while we waited. I cracked up when The Bug didn't seem that enthusiastic about the countdown. Then a couple of minutes after it was over, after we'd been watching everything happening in Time Square for a bit, she said, "So, is it 2014 now?" Apparently that whole countdown was missed on her, she had no idea what we were doing.

We gave our signature family triple kiss and while holding each other sent up good wishes for a fantastic '14. Then we all curled up in the living room and fell asleep watching Star Wars. Not a bad way to start the new year. Here's hoping all those good wishes come our way. Hope your hopes and dreams shower your life with joy this year too! Let's make it a good one.