Not Wishing You A Happy New Year

My inbox is bursting with well-wishes for the new year. I’ve been assured that 2025 will be my best year yet by at least seventeen different newsletters, which is especially impressive as I only subscribed to three.

So let me be clear: this is not a New Year’s post. I’m not asking you to embrace new beginnings or spark joy or manifest your destiny.

This is just me, writing my regularly scheduled post which happens to fall on December 31st, talking to you, who happens to be reading it. Any correlation with New Year’s celebrations is purely coincidental and should not be interpreted as seasonal enthusiasm.

The local controversy here in sleepy Paldiski is the definition of appropriate Christmas behavior. Specifically, the larger meaning of teenagers setting off fireworks.

There are plenty of reasons to express concern about fireworks, and most cities in Estonia have cancelled their annual New Year’s eve firework display in favor of light shows. There’s one hold-out: Narva, the Russian-speaking city on the Estonian/Russian border to Ivangorod. Narva has long been a thorn in Estonia’s side and this year’s decision to maintain the traditional city-funded firework display is seen as a further example of their refusal to fit in, turning New Year’s Eve celebrations into a political statement.

Personal firework displays are still accepted and even expected everywhere from Tallinn to Valga. Pop-up shops have sprung up like mushrooms in every shopping center offering everything from fairy sparklers to rocket launchers that look straight out of a war zone.

Here in Paldiski, fireworks are considered a traditional part of New Year’s Eve, with locals gathering on the street corner in front of the Over 30s Club to let off an impromptu display.

The complication is that Russian-speaking residents have a slight majority in Paldiski. The Russian Orthodox calendar puts Christmas on January 7th. This means that December the 24th and 25th are just any other night on the Russian calendar.

Bored teenagers have been setting off the occasional firework in the skate park all month long but on Christmas day, the Facebook arguments began. Because now it was political. How dare they disrespect Christmas, with a healthy dose of “you live in Estonia you know” and “if you don’t like it, go home” with caveats of “not the good ones, of course, the ones who have learned Estonian”. Responses came back in Estonian and Russian, mostly recommending the unhappy parties take a chill pill. The word “disrespectful” featured heavily on both sides. The argument bounced between the Roman alphabet and Cyrillic until even Google Translate gave up.

The following night, a flare of white burst up into the sky… with no comment from anyone. Maybe they were just tired of arguing.

I should tell you about my plans to sit by the floor-to-ceiling windows of my rooftop apartment with an artfully positioned glass of champagne and some local delicacy, maybe a plate of black bread with extra salted butter. I should tell you that I’ll be dressed in rose-gold silk pyjamas with fluffy slippers, safe in the warmth of my cast-iron fire, watching the adults gather, agreeing that now is the right time for controlled explosions on the street.

But the truth is that, after another day of touring Tallinn with my mother and daughter, I’ll probably be sound asleep by ten in my old flannel pyjamas, missing everyone’s New Year’s celebrations entirely.

(Photo by jeshoots.com)