I’ve never been a big New Year’s Eve partier. Even in my most wild of college days, which weren’t all that wild, I never got into the whole New Year’s Eve Big-Shebang. In fact, one year found me taking NyQuil (I had a cold) and going to bed around 9:00, only to be grumpily woken up by phone calls at midnight. The first New Year’s Eve in our new/current house found me waking up to the sound of (illegal) fireworks at midnight which made me really grumpy as they woke my sleeping one year old.
What can I say? I like my sleep.
We usually like to stay in, put the kids to bed a little later than usual and see just how late we can really stay up. I’ll be honest: it’s rarely midnight. As much as I like my sleep, FireDad likes his even more. A few times we’ve talked about braving the elements and going to New York City (without kids) or even visiting Pittsburgh (like I did #10yearsago) or Columbus for their festivities. Then we remember that we’re old souls.
But this year we’re getting all wild and crazy.
We’re packing up the kids, two bottles of wine, a pot of meatballs, Mario Kart, an extra Wii remote and the camera(s) and heading… over to our friend’s house for games, food, drinks and apparently a Mario Kart race off. That’s how we roll. The sad thing is that this is the biggest plan we have ever had for New Year’s Eve in the history of our marriage. We’re awesome.
The truth is that our plans, while not all that wild and crazy, sound like a blast to me. Our kids get to have fun with other kids. We get to attempt adult conversation over the roar of five children racing, playing, laughing, talking and likely arguing over something. Did I mention the wine? I did? Just thought I would mention it again so that I can say FireDad is the designated driver tonight. Safety is so important. Remember that yourselves tonight, okay? Good job.
I don’t think I would be doing anything overly outrageous tonight even if my children were merely figments of my imagination. I prefer low key to lots of people and noise (except on Saint Patrick’s Day in Pittsburgh). Some of that may be my social anxiety. Some of that may be the fact that I prefer yoga pants to anything remotely hip. Some of that may be the fact that I don’t like today’s music. And, really, I think some of it is because I like to take time to reflect a bit on the year we’re closing the door on and that’s rather hard to do when you’re yelling at your friends just so they can hear you. I mean, I’m loud but I don’t like to yell at my friends. Often.
Volume aside, or perhaps in spite of, I’m excited for this evening. Good friends, good food and what will hopefully be a good time. Sounds like a great way to end a very good year, doesn’t it?
Happy New Year!
_
Also, as a quick aside, I went with this for my January 2010 desktop. You can download it here. It makes me happy.
It’s official. National Blog Posting Month (fondly known as 