Best wishes for a happy and healthy New Year!
“Last night, between eleven and twelve o’clock… the Old Year was leaving her final foot-prints on the borders of Time’s empire…. she thus awaited the midnight knell that was to summon her to the innumerable sisterhood of departed years….
The New Year…. greeted the disconsolate Old Year with great affection, and sat down beside her… waiting for the signal to begin her rambles through the world. The two were own sisters, being both grand-daughters of Time; and though one looked so much older than the other, it was rather owing to hardships and trouble than to age, since there was but a twelve-month’s difference between them.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864), “The Sister Years,” Carrier’s Address to Patrons of the Salem Gazette, 1839 January 1st