A New Year's Eve Review

Wow. Did the year really turn already? I am still in denial. New Year's Eve (NYE) is always one of those awkward nights where you don't necessarily want to go out because of the potential hassles involved but you feel awfully lame staying in for the night.

I have spent most of my NYEs at home, saying goodnight to my parents at about 9p.m., and then staying up alone to watch the ball drop. Yeah, I know, how exciting is that?

On a few other occasions, I spent NYE with my in-laws and while they normally stay up until midnight, the evening is not much different than the rest of the visit.

In two previous years I have gone to a NYE party and both were spectacularly lame. At the first one, I was abandoned by the friend who dragged me there and had to find a way home. At the second, my immediate group of friends was about 10 years older than the rest of the crowd. Yes, we were the old fogies...at midnight we quickly snuck out the door to get home before the drunks hit the roads.

However, a few NYEs stand out in my book:

In 2000, NYE became the day that I got engaged. It was freezing outside, we're talking below zero with the windchill, and A asked me to marry him while we were outside and standing on an exposed deck on a hillside. Don't crucify him for the meterological mishap- he chose the spot because it is one of my favorite places (not that I normally go there on brutally cold nights, but that's ok).

In 2002, we went to one of those "First Night" celebrations in my husband's hometown. It was fun, not too crazy, and I would definitely go again.

In 2004, I spent NYE in Florence, Italy. I have to admit that I went to sleep far before midnight, but I was also 19 weeks pregnant at the time and was a wee bit tired as we neared the end of our European trek. Florence, however, was fabulous.

In 2005, we decided to attend a party, baby in tow, and then stay the night to avoid the risks of driving home that evening. Overall, a good party. The best feature, though, was knowing that our baby was asleep upstairs. The latter half of 2005 showed me, without question, that although I spent many of my younger years claiming that I wasn't cut out to be a mom, I was absolutely and completely wrong. That is about the best way to ring in the New Year that I can imagine.



Happy New Year, all.