Which suggests that Hawthorne was making a jest at his own expense for repackaging and selling his older stories. If so, it's about the only humour to be found in proximity to The Sister Years, which is not a laugh-inducing tale.
As for what I didn't like about the story... all of the Old Year's memories and mementoes are sad and bad ones. All of them. Every one of them is the result of human failure, whether it is the betrayed loves, the broken promises, the crimes, or the wars. There is certainly an element of truth in this; each year contains more than its fair share of horror, pain, and suffering. But there are good, beautiful, and wondrous things in the world as well. The Old Year- and Nathaniel Hawthorne- make no allowance for or acknowledgement of this. The Old Year has apparently carried only the sorrows and tribulations along with her, but what of the joys and triumphs which the year contained? The story takes a very dim view of human nature, detailing mankind's failures; betrayal, greed, violence, folly and ingratitude... these things are true and present in all of us to a degree. But people are also capable of great kindness, generousity, loyalty, and self-sacrifice. How is it that the Old Year has retained all of the negative things and none of the positive ones? I find the portrayal of the year in The Sister Years to be incomplete and ultimately unconvincing due to the fact that it concentrates on the bad to the exclusion of anything good.
2016 has been a year of many ups and downs. There have been horrific outrages, and terrible tragedies. There have also been many amusing, amazing, and lovely things which have occurred. A lot of things have happened which we don't know yet if they'll end up being positive or negative, though it's fascinating to speculate. In short, this year has been a mixed bag like any other-like life itself- and to ignore all the bad in order to declare 2016 to be wonderful, or to disregard all the good and condemn the year as an awful one would be equally unsound. Whatever occurs, each year is a blessing which should be lived to its fullest, not feared and regretted.