Happy Deliverance Day: How New Yorkers Say Goodbye to 2020's Problems

If there was a year when we wanted to forget everything that happened in the last 365 days, then this is 2020. Pandemic, quarantine and talk about politics - that's what US residents wanted to say goodbye to on Happy Deliverance Day. About the annual ceremony in New York, the newspaper writes ABC7.

On Monday, December 28, the 14th annual Good Riddance Day celebrations took place in Times Square, New York.

Every year on this day everyone can say goodbye to unpleasant memories and associations associated with the past year. To do this, they conduct a kind of ritual - for example, they can break a thing related to an unpleasant past or cut a piece of paper into small pieces in a paper cutting machine.

“It's time to put your bad memories or the hardships of 2020 behind us before we head out on New Years,” said Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance. “We encourage people to join us in this therapeutic event via the internet or social media as we finally say goodbye to 2020 and start the New Year with hope.”

This year, due to the coronavirus pandemic, not as many people gathered in Times Square as usual, and those who attended the event were forced to maintain a social distance.

“I just want to get rid of COVID-19,” said Willie from the Bronx. - Bye, COVID-19! "

“I want to say goodbye to the three-month quarantine when I was forced to live in my uncle's house,” said Sedrick Jalouis.

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Everyone could share what made their life worse in the past year using the hashtag #GoodRiddanceDay. Their stories have been printed. Jonathan Bennett, host of New Years in Times Square, read selected stories live, and volunteers shredded the scraps one by one, symbolically destroying what they said. "This is a great way to start the new year from scratch!" Said Jeffrey Straus, President of Countdown Entertainment.

Planet Fitness has made it its mission to understand what Americans want to say goodbye to the most on New Year's Eve. She commissioned a national study on this topic.

So what do Americans want to say goodbye to the most?

The results showed that the majority (88%) of Americans have at least one thing they want to get rid of. Among them, almost two out of three (65%) no longer want to hear talk about politics and elections, and 62% want to forget about the problems of lack of toilet paper.

Meanwhile, two out of five (41%) parents want their children to study in schools in the new year, and not remotely. Younger generations - Generation Z (30%) and Millennials (28%) - are more likely than older generations - including Generation X (19%) and Baby Boomers (13%) - to continue using video chats in everyday life ...

You can read about other strange and unusual traditions that New Yorkers adhere to. in this publication.