December 31, 2011

Happy New Year!

Cue: noisemakers, fireworks, general mayhem.  

I believe New Year’s Eve is a special night and should be treated as such.  It is a night to get dressed up.  A night to eat really great food. To party like it is 1999. (This is akin to my belief that birthdays should be treated like national holidays.)   But something happened in the last few years that has changed my view of the BIG NIGHT and allowed me to lower my expectations, but not my enjoyment.    

When I was younger I insisted on going out for New Year’s Eve.  No staying home for this party girl.  Invariably we ended up at some high-priced hotel party with bad food and plastic drinking cups jockeying for floor space among complete strangers who were crowding the minuscule dance floor.  But I wouldn’t blink, New Year’s was for dressing up and gosh darn it, we were going out.  Even if it was 10 below. 

Speaking of which, I will never forget one frigid New Year’s Eve in Chicago walking five blocks in my high heels and black cocktail dress to the Drake Hotel.  It was so cold my knees were frostbitten when we arrived.  But the hotel was so hot and crowded with revelers that after about five minutes I thawed out.  

After that experience we ended up traveling someplace warm for New Year’s. The party, however, was the same – a high-priced hotel party with plastic drinking cups, only it was warmer and the strangers crowding the floor were speaking another language.  So, no matter how far we had to go to celebrate, I was always inevitably disappointed and kept wondering where the better party was being held.  

To solve that, for a few years we even threw our own party, going as far as putting up a disco ball in the kitchen and clearing out the furniture to dance. Yet, I still assumed someone else up the block was doing it better. 

After our kids were born, I insisted we get a babysitter and go out, because I argued they are children, they should be asleep by midnight.  But it became so hard to find one, I often had to secure them in June with promise of a bonus.  Even if we didn’t have New Year’s plans – we’d make them – because we had the sitter.   

As the kids got older, finding a sitter got harder and for some reason, my husband actually wanted to spend time with our kids on New Year’s Eve. So I settled in for early nights with close friends and their similarly-aged kids.  Unlike the hotels, the food was great and we drank from real glasses.  But still, there was always a nagging feeling that someplace else someone else was having the perfect New Year’s Eve celebration. 

Then last New Year’s Eve we ended up staying home just the four of us for the first time.  As we watched the crowds in Times Square on T.V. hanging out in the family room it occurred to me there was no perfect New Year’s Eve celebration someplace else.   It was actually wonderful to be watching those crazy people on television while I was at home wearing my pink (faux) cashmere lounging pajamas, having cooked and eaten a great meal with my family. No plastic cups, no strangers trodding on my shoes, no better place to be. I reminded myself that while New Year’s Eve is a special night - a night for reflection, endings and beginnings - it is still, just another night. 

There really is no better party anywhere else in the world.  Last year, I heard a woman say on T.V. that being in Times Square was on her “bucket list.”   And after all these years of failed expectations  I finally realized, while sitting in my family room with those I love around me, my bucket is already full. Happy New Year.  May 2012 fill your bucket.

First Published in the Democrat and Chronicle and USA Today Network.