I come to bury 25, not to praise it

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury 25, not to praise him.
The evil that years do lives after them;
The good is oft interred in their days;
So let it be with 25.

This is, of course, a knock off of Marc Antony’s speech from the Shakespeare play Julius Caesar.

Normally it starts ‘Friends, Romans, country men, lend me your ears. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.’

This after the Roman Senators, led by Marcus Junius Brutus, assassinated Julius Caesar by stabbing him. Having so many assassins makes it difficult to know who dealt the killing blow.

This was after Caesar had proclaimed himself the dictator of the Roman Republic.

And that is where I am going to leave it.

Draw your own conclusions.

The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year of 2025 has died.
(apologies to Judith Viorst)

It lived for what seemed like more than the 365 days it was allotted and dragged on and on and on. Each day was seemingly more horrible than the last.

I broke down much of 2025’s crimes against the world in yesterday’s post. Yes, I know that the crimes were done by actual real live people but the year bears some culpability.

Today I want to celebrate 2026 and tell you how I bid good riddance to 25.

I threw 25 a wake.

A wake, according to Wikipedia, is a part of death ritual in many cultures. The rite allows for last interaction with the dead (25), and allows for thoughts and feelings to be expressed to the body. 25 left no corporeal body and so this all had to be done in absentia. Or the absence of a body.

To be fair, I waited until the year was well and truly dead before I celebrated its ending. I didn’t want to leave it any loop holes, you see.

I made all the lucky foods I could think of. I had grapes, I had mandarin (round food). I made collard greens and black-eyed peas. I had Lucky Charms. Sushi of the vegetarian type also felt right to me so I bought some of that too.

I made 2025 a casket, stickered with gold numbers. I had a voodoo doll, I had a Dammit Doll, I had a sage candle. I had a stuffed crocheted dumpster fire. Dot decided that it was hers and batted it off the table.

I arranged several of these around the little stickered casket and took a picture (of course). Did I write that I cut out flames to further bedazzle the casket? That part was a lot of fun.

The little casket only came in a pack of two so I of course had to make a 2026 one. I collected many good luck symbols to herald 2026. I had a Lucky Cat charm. I had an academic success sachet as I am still working on my dissertation and finishing my PhD. Too bad, the last year kinda derailed me as I thought, and still do, that my attention and writing skills would be better used in resistance.

I kept the voodoo doll and put it in the 2026 casket.

Only time will show if any of these had any impact on the world and the new year. But I had a lot of fun thinking about what to use to wake 2025, and also what to have on hand to prompt 2026 to be on its best behavior.

It gave me some sense of closure to list all the things that it had done wrong and it gave me a sense of hope to show 2026 the mistakes of 25 and a roadmap of what I would like to accomplish this year.

2025 was well and truly waked.

And 2026 has been given its marching orders.

Fingers crossed.