Happy New Year! Well, OK. We’re jumping the gun, but only by a few hours.

New Year’s Day has always been something of a non-holiday in our world. Having spent almost all of my career in the 365-day-a-year world of journalism, New Year’s Day was always the preferred holiday to work if there was a choice. Volunteering for duty then made it more likely to have real holidays, like Thanksgiving and Christmas, to spend with the family.

Dealing with the new year has always been something of a game. You know how easy it is to mess up and put last year’s date on checks or correspondence at the start of the year? For the past 40 years or so, we’ve made it a challenge to avoid that. And except for one or two years, we’ve been able to win that mental contest.

By the simple virtue of being the first day of the first month, New Year’s Day has the title of holiday bestowed upon it. It’s not a bad way to start a year, a holiday, a day off for most. The week after Christmas and New Year’s Day also allow us to look back upon the past year, in this case 2008, and ahead; in this case, to 2009.

By most conventional standards, 2008 stunk. That doesn’t mean it was all bad, but one had to take things into one’s hands to create the good times. Making new friends, achieving personal milestones and dealing with new experiences can make any year a special year on a personal level.

But otherwise; not so hot. On a worldwide basis, the winding down of the war in Iraq is a good thing, but that’s about it.

We experienced the pain of $4 per gallon gasoline. At least the price went down even faster than it went up.

And then there was the economic meltdown that threatened to take down the U.S. economy. The experts say that without the multi-billion dollar government bailouts of banks and other financial institutions, it would have been even worse. As it is, mortgage defaults and home foreclosures are occurring at a record rate and layoffs around the country are happening at an alarming clip every day. A high school friend living in Florida told me, “Pretty soon, we’re going to be down there with you guys,” referring to our local economy’s perpetual state of near-depression.

Locally, that might actually be our saving grace. After all, our housing costs never hit the stratosphere the way they did in many parts of the country. Now, they don’t have that far to fall. In fact, the latest statistics from the New York State Association of Realtors show that, while sales are down, home prices across the state are level.

And speaking of the state, the massive budget deficits on that level promise to his hard, both in new and increased taxes and cuts in programs on the state and local levels.

Of course, 2008 brought other kinds of misery to the Niagara Falls area. Most of the Gazette’s Top 10 news stories of 2008 focused on the negative: From a city police officer being brought up on sensational charges to the closing of area churches to critical audits of the Falls schools to a former mayor being accused of wrongdoing by federal prosecutors. This year was one where those who complain about us reporting on only the bad news had something to complain about. The problem was that most of the news WAS bad.

And for 2009? Not being psychic, it’s hard to tell. But the experts say the economy should stay at least flat and could see some sort of rebound from the New Deal-type of stimulus planned by the new administration.

And there are those who feel the fact that there will be a new administration is cause for optimism itself; that President-elect Obama’s call for change will help turn things around. The fact that it’s been mainly style and little substance so far doesn’t appear to matter.

Locally, the fallout from many of 2008’s developments will continue to make news: The opening of the Main Street courthouse and the legal proceedings we spoke of earlier will fill the pages of this newspaper.

So stay up until midnight to say good-bye to 2008; then usher in 2009. Remember the good times; try to forget the bad. Anticipate the future. Hope for the best.

Dick Lucinski is the managing editor of the Niagara Gazette. His columns appear on Wednesday and Sunday.