I’ve had a variety of styles of new years, from bad to great. Now a days I tend to just hang with my best friend and watch tv. I’ve never had the coveted kiss at midnight - I’ve either not been dating anyone on December 31st or been dating a schmuck who didn’t want to kiss in front of other people.
My best New Years:
Freshman year of college - high school friends were back home for the holidays and we hung out catching up and sharing our college adventure stories while we watched a top music video countdown.
Times Square - totally crazy experience starting with the trip there on the train. A little bit of drama, but over all a cool experience. Wouldn’t want to do it every year, but I’m glad to have done it at least once.
Burning Man themed party - NYE after I went to BM I hosted a party at my house for my college friends with a BM theme - had cool decorations, made a giant wall sized glowing clock, good friends, music, and body painting. Then all us body painted freaks went to the diner and had breakfast.
NYE is a total non-event in my life. I never do anything out of the ordinary; usually I just watch TV and go about my normal routine. I’m almost always in bed by 10:00.
Last night I played Guitar Hero while Mrs. Homie surfed the net. Big whoop.
We just got back home. SWMBO and I did a murder mystery dinner that included a hotel room, even though we were only 15 minutes from home. No way did I want to drive home at 0100 with all the drunk shitheads out on the road. We had a marvelous time, slept late, ate breakfast and drove home safely.
And we had a GRAND time! Met some really nice folks at our table, made some new friends, had a great dinner, solved a murder - great way to start 2009!
In recent years the occasion has been reserved for a quiet dinner for 2 at a nice restaurant in Seattle, inspiring my last meal threads.
Over the years I’ve usually, though not always, enjoyed New Year’s Eve a lot. My favorite was when the 90s started…I was on the “Space Coast” of Cocoa Beach, Florida, watching a rocket launch and drinking champagne, eating strawberries, and kissing strangers. Only cost me one girlfriend (I’d left her behind in Ohio to hit Florida with my roommate).
This is the first new years (I think ever) where I actually had an average time. Someone even kissed me (one smokin hot chick, and then some fifty year olds…those weren’t as cool) I’m sort going through a “I don’t give a damn whats going on around me, life is to short to not have fun” phase. So New Years was okay, not great, but not the depressing night it usually is for me.
It’s like any other night at our house. We don’t drink or go out and do nothing in particular to even acknowledge it except maybe to comment casually if we notice it’s past midnight. I enjoy it in the sense that I enjoy having a quiet night at home and not being around screaming drunk people, but I’m basically indifferent to it as an event.
I will say that you couldn’t pay me to actually go out to a party any more.
It was never a really big thing, although, for a while we used to try to have a fancy dinner (until the kids came along).
Now, I feel that one of the big advantages of living in CA is that the ball drops at 9:00 and then you are free to watch old movies and go to bed when you feel like it.
I do enjoy New Year’s day, which involves good coffee, a nice breakfast and the Rose Bowl Parade.
Same here. When I was a kid, I’d go out and blow a horn or ring an old cowbell in the street.
Now, I will have a bit of bubbly and a snack, but I am loathe to go out driving anywhere.
Before I met my SO, I’d usually travel a couple hours upstate to the old homestead (the home & property willed to my dad & two uncles from their parents). We (my aunts, uncles, parents, sister, & assorted cousins) relax as a family during the day & have a bonfire that night: My granddad was a bit of a pyro & my family started the bonfire tradition in 1987, the year he died, as a tribute to him & to my grandmother, who was born on NYE. Then we watch the ball drop, have an Asti Spumante toast, & hit the sack.
A few times - since I became an adult - I’ve rung in the new year with a friend - his family usually throws a giant party.
Since I met my SO, I’ve spent NYE with him at home (he had to work both last year & this year); I hope to drag him up next year.
We usually are travelling on New Years Eve. Most years we’re in Chicago staying with my wife’s family. So we do what they do. Hang around the house until midnight, celebrate for five minutes and then go to bed.
Two years ago we were in London. Neither of us like crowds, so we watched the events from the TV in our hotel room.
This year we were in Tokyo. We had tickets to the new permanent Cirque du Soleil show “Zed” that just opened near Tokyo Disneyland on the evening of the 31st, so we saw that and we were back to our hotel by 11 pm.
