I'm married and I don't drink alcohol, so New Year's Eve celebrations of late have been a little bit anticlimactic (no champagne in Times Square, no kissing a stranger at the stroke of midnight). This has especially been the case after having children. Sure, I can get up with a baby 10 times in the middle of the night if said baby screams loudly enough, but ask me to stay up past 10 p.m. and forget it. I always have good intentions of toasting the New Year at midnight, but after a few hors d'oeuvres and a glass of sparkling cider, I'm usually sacked out on the couch. Trying to liven things up, my husband and I actually went to Las Vegas a few years ago, thinking that traveling would force us to literally get out of the house for New Year's Eve.
We stayed with my sister-in-law in a nearby suburb and had every intention of heading to the Las Vegas Strip to ring in the new year. But I was pregnant at the time, and after dinner I got very, very sleepy. I just wanted to sit for a minute. Then I got to thinking about all the people who would be crowding The Strip, and how parking is always a nightmare, and that it probably wasn't even safe to be driving with all the drunken drivers out and about, and wouldn't it be nicer to just stay home and watch a movie? I was asleep an hour later.
I come from a family of 11 children and on New Year's Eve, we would all go bang on pots and pans and shout "Happy New Year" to the cul de sac as soon as it got dark. I'm sure our neighbors rolled their eyes at us. But I think my parents had it right. Who needs to stay up until midnight to celebrate? The New Year isn't going anywhere. It will still be there when I wake up, refreshed after my preferred 10 hours of sleep and ready to get a good jump on 2009.
-- Elyssa Andrus
From the Daily Herald, Dec. 31, 2008.
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