There’s something significant about 1/1/21. Maybe it’s just the symmetry of the numbers that has got everyone excited; remember Y2K, and all that fuss over nothing? Well, now that this millennium is turning 21, there’s another hullabaloo. Like we’re all suddenly adults.

Whatever the reasons, all over north America people are planning a double New Year’s party, and both 31 December and 1 January are public holidays. They’ll be saying a nostalgic farewell to 2020, a year that promised and brought so much, and then a nervous welcome to ’21, full of portentous disruption.

Every year brings new adjustments, and this year is no different. This is the year New York taxis go full autonomous, and human drivers are banned from Manhattan streets. This is the year that paper dollars are phased out, and FedCoin officially becomes the only legal tender. This is the year that paper passports are no longer accepted at EU borders. The world is going full digital.

But perhaps the real reason there’s a double holiday is simple commerce. Suppliers and merchants have come to realize that, after Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Boxing Day and New Year have come to mean Big Sales – and who doesn’t want to double down on that? Amazon’s delivery drones are queuing for airspace, and no one wants their packages late.

So let’s get this party started early, and have a happy, happy, New Year.