N for New Year's

I used to love celebrating New Year’s Eve. It was my holiday; I was the one who always threw the party. The New Year’s after my husband and I started dating, so the one in which we would welcome 2007, I had prepared to throw my annual shindig. The Minnesota weather had other plans though, and the large amounts of snow that dumped down upon us prevented my prospective guests from traveling to my humble abode. Music Man and I celebrated alone, trying to make a dent in the vast amounts of food I had prepared and watching horribly bad movies on cable. We just barely made it to midnight, staying up just long enough to watch the ball drop on TV and to do the midnight kiss to welcome the new year right. A little over a week later, I finally threw away the remaining party food, because neither Music Man nor I could possibly eat another barbecued weenie. This year would foreshadow the years to come; I didn't know it yet, but my party days had come to an end.

The following year found Music Man and I engaged and freshly grieving the loss of my sister. I was facing a return to work, and thus a return to “normal” life that was anything but, so we were really in no mood to celebrate. The theme of the past few weeks had been family togetherness, and we missed a couple of our good friends, so we decided to have a low-key get together at our home. Our best couple friends, a gay couple whom we affectionately call “the boys,” and my middle (now only) sister and her boyfriend joined us. We munched on snacks I’d prepared, had a few drinks, and tried to control our tears as we reminisced about my sister and how much she loved celebrating anything. Our guests left shortly after the ball dropped, and 2008 began without much fanfare (for us, anyway).

As 2009 approached, we faced a looming move, because our landlord decided that he no longer wanted to rent to pet owners. Now husband and wife, Music Man and I had takeout for dinner, and once again, barely made it to midnight. We trudged up to bed looking forward more to sleep than to the year ahead.

We thought about having a party this year, but none of our potential guests seemed very interested, which ended up working out for the best because Music Man and I are both quite sick with bad colds. Our night will probably go something along the lines of this: we’ll have some kind of takeout for dinner, we’ll play with the dogs a little bit to tire them out, and all four of us will cuddle up on the couch to watch a movie on our Netflix instant queue. We will most likely be in bed before midnight, because we are both totally wiped out from this nasty cold. Hopefully we’ll wake up to 2010 feeling healthier and well rested.

There’s always next year for partying. Maybe next year will be the year we resurrect the New Year’s party, and I reclaim my holiday. We shall see. It’s a long ways away (12 months, 52 weeks, or 365 days), and I cannot speculate on all the things that can and/or will happen between now and then.

I hope that, whatever you decide to do to ring in the year, you have fun and stay safe. Wishing you all the best in 2010!