In the Middle Ages, the gloomy, penitential New Year’s rituals did not exist.

WONDERFUL observations from The Clerk of Oxford:

Since the late 20th century it’s become common to invert the traditional relationship between fasting and feasting in the Christmas season. The ancient custom was to fast in Advent in preparation for the feast, and then to celebrate for at least twelve days after Christmas (and to some degree, all through January). Now we do it the other way around; for many people the feast is followed by a penitential fast, in the form of ‘Dry January’ or New Year’s resolutions about eating less and going to the gym. As a manifestation of the desire for a fresh start, this ‘New Year, new you’ impulse is natural enough, but it does strike me as strange that it’s so often framed in negative terms. There’s an odd sense, encouraged mostly perhaps by journalists and advertisers, that the indulgence of Christmas is a ‘sin’ which has to be atoned for – as if eating and drinking with friends and family, to celebrate the turn of the year from darkness to light, is a moral lapse for which one must subsequently make amends by privation and self-punishment. We are much less kind to ourselves in these weeks after Christmas than the strictest confessor would have been in the Middle Ages. Feasting at Christmas is not something to atone for, but a proper observance due to the season; and that feasting is also the sustenance we need to carry us into the New Year with energy and strength. The renewal of Nowell in these medieval poems is not a repudiation of Christmas feasting, but the power and life with which Christmas endows us as the new year begins. Find something new in the New Year, certainly, but don’t punish yourself for enjoying Christmas first! Sing a new song, seek new adventures; it’s true that ‘a yere yernes ful yerne, and yeldez never lyke’, and we don’t know what it will bring. But nevertheless: ‘Now is well and all is well’.

Do your part to dispel the penitential gloom of the secular January. Continue with some feasting and merrymaking throughout the month. If that is not possible, simply retain the joy of Christmas in your heart.

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