The last week of December provides a special kind of torture for many of us. Hannukah and Christmas are over, but it’s not time to go back to real life just yet. There’s one more so-called “holiday” ahead, just waiting to be a disappointment to perennially hopeful revelers. I’m talking, of course, about New Year’s Eve.

How can one change in the calendar inspire so much dread? All over the world, we count down to the moment when we can officially put all our painful memories and disappointments firmly in the past and while toasting our newly hopeful futures 2017 felt more difficult than other years — thanks, President Trump — but that should be all the more reason to go into New Year's Eve feeling obligated to be festive. Right? Right?!

Every year provides enough “bad news” stories to toast its end on December 31, but even a short summary of 2017’s biggest events make it sound superlatively bad. The U.S. inaugurated Donald Trump. Congress passed a tax bill that will further enrich the wealthiest Americans at the expense of everyone else; mass shootings are still more or less commonplace; millions of Puerto Ricans are still struggling in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria; the last two months have brought horrific stories of sexual violence at a near-daily pace.

And 2018 is another election year.