New Year Preparation

By "New Year", of course, I mean the secular one - not the Beaker one which took place on 21 December (or, according to certain stubborn people who believe what they read in papers, on Halloween).
I'm planning a combined Watch night Service and New Year's Eve Party on Thursday night.  This will consist of the Beaker Quire (as opposed to the Beaker Choir - we'll sort them out tomorrow) playing "Auld Lang's Syne" repeatedly from 8pm to midnight, by which time you'll all be thoroughly glad it's the new year.
Meanwhile Bible readings will include the bit from Ecclesiastes about nothing ever getting any better, and the bit from Galations about not celebrating special days.  While other spiritual writings will include the Norse sagas, ending with that cheerful bit where even the gods die.   Also we will hear inspirational readings from such optimistic poets as Ted Hughes, Thomas Hardy and our very own Drayton Parslow.
Drayton's special New Year Poem, "It's gonna be even more ghastly than this year" is now nearly finished.  He tells me it will be complete on the Big Night.  He also promises a complete performance of his street-poetry three-day epic "Stop hitting me and I'll go away".
For the hour before midnight I'll be preaching my special New Year sermon.  You may remember it from last year (or the year before).  Or more likely you won't.  In any case - the theme is "Next year will be just like this one.  Or maybe slightly worse.  Rejoice!"  This year I will be accompanying the sermon with a Powerpoint on "Environmental Breakdown, Global Warming and the Peak Oil Problem".  Watch out for those graphs - they're totally dispiriting!
Refreshments will include champagne, Belgian Trappist Beer and Wadworth 6X.  Or they will for me.  You'll all have to bring your own.
All in all, it should be an inspirational start to 2010.