I think the idea of First Night, a city-sponsored set of events occurring on December 31 to usher in the New Year, began in Boston, MA, my home town. But it has spread to other cities across the country, including here in Austin, TX, my adopted home.

In a way it is cooler than other holiday public events, because it is less formulaic, less top-down in its conception. Yes, there is the parade, the speechifying and the fireworks. But in Austin, and I am sure in other cities, First Night feels a little like Halloween mixed with Mardi Gras.

I think it has to do with the ritual aspect of ending one time and beginning another: All holidays are rituals, but some are more staid and reflective, while some are about embracing change, stepping outside the normal routine, what anthropologists call entering a liminal state. For a brief time during these holidays we can look back on who we have been and imagine who we might be.

Halloween is of course the ultimate holiday for stepping outside your everyday self. Mardi Gras is similar, though it has less to do with subconscious fantasy, and more to do with overt celebration of life (often to excess). First Night is becoming, I think, a gentler blend of both.

Here’s my reasoning: Halloween and Mardi Gras have their origins in religious rites. Scholars debate the fine points, but we can generally say that these contemporary holidays draw from a melange of ancient Indo-European practices, among them Druidic, Christian, and Roman Pagan. They celebrated basic human life cycle moments, the seasons, life and death, real nuts and bolts stuff.

New Year’s Eve celebrates something a little more cerebral and arbitrary, the end of the calendar year. It’s important and arguably more humanly universal, as we all rotate together on this third rock from the sun. Different cultures use different calendars, but they all celebrate the New Year, even if at different times.

We all mark the progression, and it is both cyclical and linear. One year ends, another begins, in an unbroken continuum. But each year we pause to look back and look ahead, or consciously try to do neither. Champagne helps either way.

This year, on the last day of 2007, I found myself marching down Congress Avenue as part of the Golden Arm Trio brass band (2 trumpets, 1 trombone, 1 tenor sax, 1 baritone sax, 1 sousaphone, and 3 drummers). As we stood in the street waiting for the parade to begin, I saw a good representation of Austin culture: Lots of musicians, lots of costumes, hand-crafted floats and tricked-out bicycles, jugglers, dancers, all kinds of people tickling the edge of the imagination.

It was cold. It was exhausting. It was great. We marched from about 8th street down to Cesar Chavez, then west to City Hall Plaza. It was a bunch of people dressed up and making a bunch of noise, just celebrating the fact that we all made it through another year.

While I tried to keep in marching step, fighting off a headcold, blowing on my ice cold tenor sax with numb fingers, looking out at the folks lining the street, kids digging our barely controlled cacophony, I thought, “This sums up my year pretty well.”

Happy New Year.