At the centre of celebration is love. The love of family, or partners, or friends. It is this love that brings everyone together.

People crave the closeness and comfort that celebration can bring when we are surrounded by our loved ones.

However, if you are on the edge of a celebration, it can be the loneliest thing. You watch people who know each other, care for each other, and love each other when you have no one. It is as if you become stuck to the wall. But these people can become yours if you just unstick yourself.

If there is any book that tells you to how to do this it is The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. The protagonist, Charlie, had always stuck to the edge of the crowd, shy, quiet, and introverted. But when he starts high school, he tries to put himself out there. And he does. At a school dance he is introduced to a group of seniors, whose friendship group he joins. These friends change his life.

As Charlie enters their friendship group, he also enters the world of their parties, a celebration of youth, rebellion, and friendship. Charlie treasures this togetherness; the simple act of celebration opens his world. 

However, celebration can also cause a friendship group to fall apart. The Bacchanal in Donna Tartt’s The Secret History is, as Wikipedia tells us, “based on various ecstatic elements of the Greek Dionysia with the hopes that consciousness will become altered.”

This celebratory ritual subsequently changes the route of the characters’ lives. The killing of one man becomes the killing of two, and the guilt and pressure tears the friends apart. The Secret History warns against the celebration of an ‘aesthetic,’ a dedication to personal style or belief.

One of the book’s most famous quotes is an important reminder about the struggle of the characters: “I am nothing in my soul if not obsessive.” In the end, it is this obsessiveness to their aesthetic that ruins the group, the obsession to participate in celebration.

So, as we draw into the new year, celebrate with those you love before the moment passes, but don’t take it too far.

Image credit: Grace Barnett