(make) YOUR OWN KIND OF NEW YEARS

New Years has never been one of my favorite holidays to celebrate. New Years is the equivalent of getting all dressed up for the fancy high school dance that turns out all wrong. All pomp and circumstance. No substance. The only time New Years has ever met my expectations was the one year I didn‘t have any.

As a couple, my husband and I have tried alternative New Years scenarios. We have stayed home having an intimate evening with friends. Ultimately, these evenings come down to us trying to keep our eyes propped open with the toothpicks left over from the meatballs, just to watch a weird glass ball drop to the pavement in Times Square. 10 - 9 - 8 ---- ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

Ok, so maybe the element of fun gets lost in translation over the airwaves. Or whatever you call it now that everything is digital…

Last year, we rented a mountain cabin which really wasn’t too much fun either. I envisioned a rustic family gathering, board games and movies, but it ended up with my son and his friends joining us for just a few hours. The cabin was more modular home than cabin, lacking true mountain charm. Also, added to my disappointment was that the all-inclusive breakfast left a LOT to be desired. I ultimately found myself missing my dogs and regretting that we had spent several hundred of our precious Christmas $$$ only to discover my husband and I had very different ideas for how to spend a relaxing mountain vacation: he wanted to explore the surrounding area by car  while I wanted to stay at the cabin and read or hike around, although the weather was messy. Ultimately, I just wanted to get home and pay the pet sitter.   

If we are to believe the hype- most New Years festivities are built around “partying”, which is simply not my “thing” to do. Yes, I know this makes me sound dreadfully un-hip. Just using the word “dreadfully” is dreadful enough! LOL! I just don‘t ”get” that kind of “fun”. I’d rather have an evening with friends, a good conversation or do something FUN-  not just sit around with cocktails making small talk. I understand the concept of celebrating the new and throwing out the old.  But why spend such a special time becoming snockered and dressing clothing that makes you look like an ornament that the cat pulled down from the Christmas tree?

And does anyone out there REALLY like champagne???

ANYONE???

What's a 40 something SQUARE PEG to DOOOO????

My only truly memorable New Years was a couple years ago when my family and I took a bittersweet trip to London. My mother passed way unexpectedly only days before we were to leave. The trip was already booked and paid for, and there was really nothing else I could do to help my mother or my family. So- we went ahead with the trip as planned. I told myself it would be good to “get away”, as if death was something you could get away from. It  was ironic to find myself standing on foreign soil days after putting mother in our own familiar ground. Throughout the entire trip, I was exhausted, always coming up a “beat too late“. I lost my camera and my laptop, but still managed to create some wonderful, unforgettably positive memories with my family.

That New Years Eve was a magical night. My husband and I ventured down to London’s Theater District with my then 17 year old son to see the show, We Will Rock You, a musical based on the music of Queen. We rode together for the first time in a rickshaw as we made our way down to the Bridge at the River Thames, awaiting the massive display of fireworks that were to be shot from the huge ferris wheel, The London Eye, as well as several floating barges. There, huddled together with thousands of other onlookers in the freezing cold and a few unexpected flurries of snow, we were caught up in the excitement and experienced a fiery and dazzling display of light.

There was something  so magical about being lost in the huge crowd of people. Pressed shoulder to shoulder on that bridge, for the first time in days, I could finally breathe. I realized that I was just a speck in time, and that my problems- my loss- was also a speck in time. I felt “at home” surrounded by these strangers, most of whom were foreigners. As one who has always gone to the beat of a different drummer, I have always been a stranger in my own land…Here I was, submerged in a strange culture which simply confirmed that we ALL have our differences, yet we all basically want the same things.

Like so many other holidays, perhaps it’s become impossible for New Years to surpass all the hype. Every year, there is so much talk about New Year’s resolutions, yet how many (or rather, FEW) of us ever follow through??? Then,  New Years Rockin’ Eve became too painful to watch once valiant Dick Clark became so disabled by his stroke. Hell, rather than subject myself to the gyrating hips of Lady Gaga or the partially clad young ladies wearing their Elton John-sized 2012 glasses and part-TAY! hats, just sit me IN a rocking chair somewhere and let me feel about as old as Colonel Sanders. (He founded KFC, for chrissakes, for any of ya’ll too young to remember…)

I know- I’m being too hard on the partyers… it’s just not MY bag.

It’s just that New Years is too good of an opportunity to let slip by “wasted“- however you wish to interpret the use of that word. We should remember to find meaning in however we choose to celebrate. The approaching new year is a time for reflections AND a time for dreams. New Years Eve is the magical opportunity to simultaneously close the door to the past and open the door to the future. 

One that, if we are LUCKY, ushers us in with light and shooting stars onto a bridge that is the upcoming New Year.

Wishing you all Peace, Love, Prosperity and Light in 2012!

Susan