“This New Year’s,” he said, watching me carefully. “It is important? Like Christmas?”
“Well, it’s a holiday, but it’s not really like Christmas. That is, it doesn’t have any kind of religious underpinnings. It’s just sort of how we celebrate the passage of time. The start of the new year is a time for new beginnings, so we throw a big party on the thirty-first of December to ring in the new.”
His eyebrows pulled together as he appeared to mull that over. After spearing a piece of bread, dipping it in the cheese, and eating it thoughtfully, he said, “But surely this is an arbitrary marker? Time is continuous…it doesn’t make any distinction between one year and another.”
I couldn’t help chuckling at his comment. “You sound like Paul Oliver. He’s said the same thing on more than one occasi
