Happy New Year. It's Thursday, January the 1st, 2026, and you've joined us for Denison

Forum's Daily Article Podcast. Welcome. I'm narrator Chris Elkins, giving voice to today's

daily article written by friend and CEO, Dr. Jim Denison.

My amazing editor gets up every morning at 5.30 to proofread the daily article posted on our website and distribute it via email.

To give her today's holiday off, we finished this article yesterday. As a result, I'm predicting what you now know to be true or not.

Roughly, one million people packed into New York's Times Square last night to watch a crystal ball

drop from one time square as midnight approached. The ball was new this year, adorned with

5,280 crystals and weighing about 12,350 pounds.

For the first time ever, it was re-lit and dropped again at approximately 12.04 a.m. Eastern Time in anticipation of America's 250th anniversary on July 4th, 26.

The ball will drop a third time on the eve of the 4th of July for the same reason.

Door County in Wisconsin dropped a giant cherry into a crowd of people,

while Amelia Island, Florida, dropped a giant shrimp, and Boise,

Idaho dropped a giant glowing potato at the state's capital.

But I think beginning the new year with a lighted ball descending to a waiting crowd is especially

appropriate.

Consider these facts.

It's dark at midnight, which makes the light more necessary, obvious, and powerful.

The light descends from the heavens above to the earth below.

Its light is available to all, but experienced only by those who seek to do so.

It was anticipated when I wrote about it, but it became a reality

at the proper moment, not a minute too soon or too late. If you were reading about such a light

on Christmas rather than New Year's Day, would any of this seem familiar? Simeon called the

...