Chidem Inch: New Year’s Resolution

It is the first day of 2023. As I drove around today, I saw Christmas trees at the curbsides of homes and several people outside taking down their decorations. From when I was a schoolboy, this always made me a bit sad. The warmth and glow of Christmas abruptly ends with the New Year and is hammered home with the return to work and school shortly thereafter. As Armenians, we do get to stretch things a bit through Armenian Christmas on January 6, but that only delays the inevitable a few days.

Amid all the festivities and the various gatherings with family and friends, the Christmas season was clouded this year by our worries about the ongoing blockade of Artsakh by the Azeris. While enjoying the holidays here, the dire situation of our 120,000 brothers and sisters in Artsakh weighed on our hearts. We found ourselves including them in our prayers before our Christmas dinners and in our hopeful expressions for the New Year. With the holidays here coming to a close, the grimness of the blockade that began on December 12th has set in even deeper.