You sound as though the church is to serve our worldly life but our life is to serve God, right?
However, more accurately speaking: as, consciousness grows in men, Nature becomes conscious of the immanent power within her.  The world in a real sense is the ‘becoming’ of God.  The Church is Man become conscious of his destiny as a son of God.
The Church is about God and to teach us how to become a son of God and not a place to help us feel better about our 'worldly' life. 
"Making New Year's day a Holy Day of OBLIGATION is a great example of missing the boat."
Really?  In Orient, New Year's day is a holy day, for this day the whole family clean house, make the new clothes, cook feasts, and the whole family get    together to bow in thanking to elders for last years labor of love for them and to each others!  To  Catholics, God is the elder to thanking him for His loving care for us the whole pass year seems so reasonable to me!  
Instead you want a new year's eve party, amazing!