What's so happy about a new year, anyway?

Every early January, as I watch the Christmas tree drop needles like a DJ on meth, I find myself wondering the same thing: Is anyone ever sad to see the old year go? Because, to me, the start of a new year is fairly depressing.

Those final days of December are regularly filled with a single sentiment from friends and strangers online and IRL: “Thank God that awfulness will soon be over! Don’t let the door hit you in your fat, ugly stern, old year. The new one has got to be better!” After weeks of jaunty carols relentlessly assaulting our ears to the point where German death metal becomes a welcome change, I can somewhat understand that sentiment.

Then comes the stroke of midnight that ends our previous 365 days of alleged agony with popping champagne corks and confetti raining down, celebrations of hope for unlimited futures played out on clean slates. Until you wake up Jan. 1 with a thumping hangover and — Lord, will you look at that mess! Did my paper shredder also have too much bubbly last night and vomit on the carpet?

So begins the scouring. Such a clutter we’ve amassed since last New Year’s Day. But isn’t that the sign we had ourselves a good ol’ time these past 52 weeks? Isn’t this an accumulation of joyous mementos helping us recall corresponding happy times? Instead we vacuum, scrub and drag away to the donation bins those reminders and memories. To make room for more and even better ones, you say. Buddy, have you seen the news lately?

Speaking of amassing mass. Now, again, begins the dieting. Twelve months of many marvelous meals, tasty treats, carefully crafted cocktails locked into our belly and chins. Alas, let’s flush them away in a sea of liquefied kale and celery. To think, I once so loved the color green.

When not focused on our excesses, we look at our deficits — inside and out. Accomplishments never accomplished. Financial windfalls never blown our way. Love stretched for that eluded our grasp. We’d bury these failures under the childhood delight of Oreos and the adult warmth of whiskey but neither are keto recommended. So in come the New Year’s resolutions to do better and a day, a week, a month later it’s “hello, failure my old friend.”

You think we’d know better just by looking out our windows and stepping out our doors. A new year in New England brings hope only if it’s brave enough to ride the frigid winds of our coldest and literally darkest days. We hunker down and kid ourselves: longer, warmer daylight will soon be here. In three or maybe six months, jetstream willing. Meanwhile, it’s on with another thermal layer to keep the heating bill at bay.

This is the dead zone, friends, the killing time. No surprise that it coincides with — yawn — the NBA regular season. Chances are you’re making the playoffs so just get on with it (New York Knicks, aside).

What’s worse this time around is that this New Year’s Baby sports a diaper large enough to hold a presidential election. Say what you will against 2019, but at least I didn’t spend the first few weeks of it worrying what fate the old-timers sipping lukewarm java at every Casey’s General Store in Iowa would hand me the next four years.

Well, unless we go full bear and hibernate until spring, we’ll have to find a way to muddle through to drudgery of cleaning, cleansing and failing at flawless alliteration. Are the Knicks on TV tonight?