Not-so-happy New Year: From forced fun to fear

I have hated everything about New Year's all my life: cheap street decorations, things no one would try to pass off as gifts at any other time of the year, restaurants where food is bad and the music is worse, television channels with loud and gaudy programs and connections to main squares in New York, Paris and London, street parties where there are just too many people, friends' house parties where you have to work to be amused, family dinners where you nod politely at boring conversation and try to be nice to skirt-tugging kids who should have been in bed long ago. Oh, and the hangover of the next day and wasted resolutions, too.

It never occurred to me that I would miss it. But then, I never imagined that I would have to choose between forced fun and fear.

Last year, reading Turkish writer Elif Şafak's description of the New Year's celebrations of her childhood in the Financial Times (an article aptly titled "Turkey's vote against Christmas") I thought of an old photo from one of the New Year's Eve parties we used to have at home.  In this black-and-white photo, where my father and his friends have turtleneck sweaters and long sideburns, my brother and I are wide-eyed and tired as we unwrap the gifts that were brought by a guy in a very fake white beard - a total stranger who was the neighborhood Father Christmas/Santa Claus for several years of my childhood in Ankara. He knocked on doors, gave small gifts and took a small token sum. Today, I doubt if any family would open its doors to a strange man dressed as Santa Claus, particularly if he is carrying a heavy bag on his back. 

In my 20s and 30s, I witnessed the redundant Santas who had become common marketing tools - in supermarkets, stores, malls and on the street. They were as...