And it’s time for some humor.

Youth is when you’re allowed to stay up for New Year’s. Middle age is when you’re forced to.

A woman took an afternoon nap on New Year’s Eve. When she woke up, she told her husband, “I just dreamed that you gave me a diamond ring for a New Year’s present. What do you think it all means?” He replied, “Aha, you’ll know tonight!” At midnight, her husband handed her a small gift-wrapped present. Excited, she opened it quickly, but was even more surprised: In it was a book titled The Meaning of Dreams.

A man who had too much to drink decides to walk home on New Year’s Eve. A policeman stopped the man and asked where he was going. “I’m on my way to a lecture,” the man replied. The cop scoffed, “Who gives lectures on New Year’s Eve?” The man answered: “My wife.”

I was going to quit all my bad habits for the New Year, but then I remembered that nobody likes a quitter.

My resolution was to read more, so I put the subtitles on on my TV.

How you elect to spend New Year’s Eve will depend on your:
1. age
2. remaining levels of optimism
3. threshold of pain
– Joseph Connolly

An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.
– Bill Vaughan

Wait a second, there’s ANOTHER year? I have to do it all over again???
– Jake Vig ‏@Jake_Vig

Finally, some few readers might wonder why I don’t do a retrospective of the year just concluding. Why I don’t are illustrated as follows:

That great American philosopher, Satchel Paige:

Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.

And this, from Italian racing (or so I’ve heard), but that has wide applicability:

What’s behind me is not important.

Finally, finally, this bit, counter-tenor, from Michael Jordan:

I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

Because it’s time, again….

Two men are going golfing, when one stops by the pro shop…
“I need to get a sleeve of balls, you want me to pick you up some?”
“No thanks. I just need this one.”
“Just one ball? What if you hit it deep into the woods?”
“Well, it makes a whistle after you hit it. Can’t lose it. I only need this one.”
“What is its dark and you hit it into a sand trap?”
“Well, it glows in the dark. Can’t lose it. I only need this one.”
“What if you hit it into the water? You’ll never find it.”
“Well, it floats. I’m telling you, you can’t lose it. I only need this one.”
“Wow. That’s some ball. Where’d you get it?”
“Oh, I found it.”

This is my step ladder. I never knew my real ladder.

A duck is standing next to a busy road, cars zooming past while he waits for a break in traffic. A chicken walks up to him and says, “Don’t do it, man. You’ll never hear the end of it.”

My grandmother’s last words before she kicked the bucket were, “Hey, how far do you think I can kick this bucket?”

Why can’t dinosaurs clap? Because they’re dead.

Why do scuba divers fall backwards out of the boat? Because if they fell forward, they’d still be in the boat.

Why does a chicken coop have two doors? If it had four it would be a chicken sedan.

A man walks into a bar and sees a bunch of people waiting to get refreshments. He asks the bartender, “Is this really the punch line?”

As I get older, and I remember all the people I’ve lost along the way, I think to myself, maybe a career as a tour guide wasn’t for me.

And finally, an oldie but goodie for the woke teachers:

A teacher was teaching her class about whales.
She said that it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human being as even though it was a gigantic animal, its stomach was very small. A little girl put up her hand and said that Jonah was swallowed by a whale. Irritated, the teacher insisted that a whale couldn’t possibly swallow a human. The little girl said, “When I get to Heaven, I’ll ask Jonah.”
The teacher replied, “What if Jonah went to Hell?”
The girl said: “Then you ask him.”

And it’s the season….

I’ve been so bored this week that I just memorized six pages of the dictionary.
I learned next to nothing.

My wife beamed at me with pride and said, “Wow! I never thought our son would go that far!”
I said, “This catapult is amazing! Go get our daughter.”

I saw a girl crying, so I asked her “Where are your parents?” and she started crying even more.
Man, I love working at the orphanage.

Notice t‌‌hat t‌‌he w‌‌ord “‌‌nothing” i‌‌s a‌‌ p‌‌alindrome.
Backwards i‌‌t s‌‌pells “‌‌gnihton,” w‌‌hich a‌‌lso m‌‌eans n‌‌othing.

What is black and white and red all over?
An elephant dressed as a nun suffering from sunburn.

Four blind elephants encounter a human, who is a creature they’ve never seen before. Wishing to learn about this creature, one decides to feel him. He reports that humans are flat. The other three then investigate, also, and they agree.

What is gray, has four legs, and a trunk?
A mouse going on vacation.

What is brown, has four legs, and a trunk?
A mouse coming back from vacation.

What has eight legs, two trunks, four eyes, and two tails?
Two elephants.

What game do four elephants in a mini play?
Squash

What does Tarzan say when he sees a herd of elephants in the distance?
“Look, a herd of elephants in the distance.”
What does Tarzan say when he sees a herd of elephants with sunglasses?
Nothing. He doesn’t recognize them.
What does Tarzan say when he sees a herd of giraffes in the distance?
“Haha! You fooled me once with those disguises, but not this time!”

Tarzan comes home after a hard day and asks Jane to mix him a martini.
He’s hardly sat down before he’s finished it and he asks Jane to mix him another, and being a caring, nurturing mate, she does so. Again, Tarzan makes it disappear and asks (nicely enough, to be fair) for still another one.
At this, Jane arches a delicate eyebrow and says “Three martinis? Before dinner?”
“Jane, you don’t understand,” sighs Tarzan. “It’s a jungle out there!”

A performative poet of Hibernia
Rhymed himself into a hernia.
He became quite adept
At this practice, except
For the occasional non-sequitur.

It’s that time. Because I say so.

How do you put an elephant inside a fridge?
I don’t know.
It’s easy, you just open the fridge and put it in.

How do you put a donkey inside the fridge?
It’s easy, you just open the fridge and put it in.
No, you open the fridge, take out the elephant, then put the donkey in.

If all the animals went to the lion’s birthday party, and one animal went missing which one would it be?
The lion, of course, because it would eat all the animals.
No, it’s the donkey because it’s still inside the fridge.

If there’s a river full of crocodiles, and you wanted to cross, how would you?
I would need a boat to cross.
No, you just swim across because all the animals went to the lion’s birthday party.

Q: What do you call a boomerang that doesn’t work?
A: A stick.

A blind man enters a bar and find his way to a barstool.
After ordering a drink, and sitting there for a while, the blind guy yells to the bartender, “Hey, you wanna hear a blonde joke?”
The bar immediately becomes absolutely quiet.
In a husky, deep voice, the woman next to him says, “Before you tell that joke, you should know something. The bartender is blonde, the bouncer is blonde and I’m a 6′ tall, 200 pound blonde with a black belt in karate. What’s more, the fella sitting next to me is blonde and he’s a weightlifter. The woman to your right is a blonde, and she’s a pro wrestler. Think about it seriously, mister. You still wanna tell that blonde joke?”
The blind guy says, “Nah, not if I’m gonna have to explain it five times.”

A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.

My cow gives less milk,
now that it has been eaten,
by a fierce dragon.

Five syllables here.
Seven more syllables here.
Are you happy now?

And finally,

Haikus are easy.
But sometimes they don’t make sense.
Refrigerator.