This article is from Le Figaro Magazine
The joys of Christmas are over. It is, in principle, a family celebration. The term "party" is quite relative. Not everyone is welcome. There are the in-laws, the parents, other people's children, one's own, the gifts to be honored, the endless meal, the Christmas tree to be thrown away in three weeks' time covering the staircase with thorns. But in the end, theoretically, it stays in the family. The worst is yet to come: New Year's Eve. Reasonable people decide not to leave their homes and watch a very sinister Bergman movie.
But often, the spouse, or that new thing in the middle whose genre we don't know very well, insists on the big bamboche, with a lot of alcohol and atrocious music. The least painful thing is to be invited: you can leave discreetly at the chosen moment, i.e. before the ultimate heaviness. But when it's all happening at home? You have to come up with subterfuges: reciting quotes from Cioran standing on a table, evoking the great films with Gérard Depardieu, triggering a debate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, another on euthanasia, on the immigration law, etc.
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All kinds of conversations guaranteeing as much rejoicing. To get this drunken assembly to leave, to play Yoko Ono's solo albums (photo), which it is no longer necessary to own, streaming sites take care of it, thank you very much. And, when the time comes for good resolutions, come out with the killer sentence: "I have decided not to hurt people unintentionally anymore. How about you? I'm guessing you're going to lose weight?"