new year’s day, like the other major holidays after decades of repeated celebrations, is something of an acceptable cliché. perhaps it’s the refreshing change of tone that we crave after what has become a two-month holiday season that sets celebrating the coming year in a different key from the other holidays. we’re ready for it and we know how this works. real life is just around the corner again. back to work, back to routine, back to normalcy.

unlike thanksgiving and christmas, the expanding timelines of which stir up an annual exponential increase in my personal scroogeness, there’s not really an agenda with new year’s day. sure, there’s the fitness thing, but that’s often necessary. we don’t get up in arms about preserving the reason for the season on 12/31. there’s no “war on new year’s day” trending on twitter — it’s just a song and dance we do to romanticize into one day a celebration of a something that we have every day. that thing is grace.

today is really not that different from yesterday. i did wake up with a slight headache that i might not have had, had we not declared yesterday the occasion for epic merriment via champagne punch. BUT other than the fact that we have chosen to cram in one more party for december and, you know, the calendar, the new year celebration feels a little irrelevant.

a fresh start feels great. it’s liberating. it reminds us that we’re never out of time to work on being more disciplined (not necessarily better) versions of ourselves– and what better time for this annual reminder? it works. it makes sense.

but what it is that we’re celebrating in this annual empowered press of the re-set button is the gentle nudge that wakes us up every morning. it whispers to us, “hello. let’s go.” and we wake up and we keep moving. we say yes and we dance in the grace of a new day (yes, even before that first cup of coffee). every. single. day.

so make your resolutions, set goals, get right to work on them–all the while knowing and celebrating that the new year’s gift of a clean slate that we love to embrace is unfathomably grander and more beautiful than this january 1 interpretation.

all that being said, the end of one year stirs in me tremendous gratitude for the last 365 days and i’m filled with excitement and ever-growing hope (read: “freaking pumped”)  for 2014. let’s do this, y’all.