Written by: Roscoe |  Print this post and share it with your buddies!

It Happens All Over The World

People celebrate New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day in different ways: some party down and bring in the New Year and hardly remember it the next day. Some are a little more low key, choosing to spend the night, or the next day, with friends and/or family in a quiet dinner or brunch, watching football and promising that waistlines will be smaller this year.

Cave Men Did It, Too

Why wouldn’t they? Just because there were no calendars yet didn’t mean they couldn’t tell when another year was upon them. In fact, it was easy. Right after Christmas (see The First Christmas), about six days, to be exact, Cave Babes wanted something else to celebrate. Sure, they were happy with the shell necklace that their Cave Dude risked his life to get them for Christmas (Cave Dudes didn’t just pick up shells off the beach and string them together – string hadn’t even been invented yet – they had to wade into the ocean, battle deadly Piranha and Catfish – Catfish were killers back then, not everyone knows that, this was long before Paul Prudhomme blackened them), but after a few years of the same thing (choices were limited, as they hadn’t invented shopping yet), the Babes were just a little bored with the shell necklace, but didn’t know how to say it, as complaining hadn’t been invented yet (though it wasn’t far off).

They Wanted A Party

But parties hadn’t been invented yet, either. Mostly when they wanted to have a good time they kind of jumped around the cave (dancing came right after this), bumping into each other and laughing when someone fell. Once in a while one of them (usually the Cave Babe) would break out in a series of melodic grunts, but it ended there, as Karaoke was a long way off. And no one had invented booze yet, so how good a party could they have, anyway?

That Kiss At Midnight

Who do you think invented that? The Cave Dude, that’s who. Admittedly, he was going for a head butt, as that’s how they showed affection back then, but somehow he came up short, and connected with the Cave Babe’s lips instead. Needless to say, no more head butts after that. Kissing caught on, and it remains, even today, one of the best things you can do with your clothes on (and it’s even better without them).

New Year’s Day Was More Sedate

As it is for most of us today. After the big party the night before, we’re all a little slow, so we take it easy, trying to give our brains and bodies time to sort out the discrepancy between the craziness we decided was appropriate the night before, and the good intentions we have for the rest of the year. That’s why they invented resolutions. But resolutions were invented long ago on some New Year’s Day, after a big party, so they were always destined to fail (let’s be realistic: what good ever came out of a hangover?).

We All Look Forward To The Coming Year

As did the Cave Men and Women. Sometimes it doesn’t last long. For the Cave Dude, the hopes and dreams for a better life probably ended as soon as he spotted a T-Rex on the prowl near his favorite beach (they always had beaches, and there were always bikinis, witness Raquel Welch in “One Million Years B.C.”). And today our own good spirits are usually dashed when we realize we have to go back to work (who was it who invented jobs, anyway?).

But We’ll Always Have New Year’s

So party down if you want to, just like the Cave Man did. And look forward to good things in the coming year. Cave Dudes did it, so can we. And we don’t even have to dodge dangerous animals. Unless you’re on a plane from Amsterdam to Detroit with a terrorist from Yemen. But that’s for another blog.

Happy New Year from Cookin’ With Roscoe