I’m not a fan. Are you? Mr. Z loved a party ANY time, so we had some nice big dinner parties on New Year’s Eve. For him. After a few years, we’d just have another couple over or something. I couldn’t wait till they left, hoped it would be before midnight, but would act congenial and we’d all kiss on the new year, wish each other the best and then call it a night! Lately, I’ve been very happy to do absolutely nothing.
Are you a New Year’s Eve party animal? I think most people are.
If you were in New York City, would you go to Time Square tonight? I can’t IMAGINE it being that worth it…can YOU?
What was your favorite New Year’s Eve? And do you make RESOLUTIONS? Can you share yours with us?!
Though I sound like a New Year’s Eve Grinch, I definitely do wish you ALL a fabulous 2016! Happy New Year!
Z
geeez2014
GeeeZ .... 
There was a time, years ago, when I was up for three days straight while on duty.
I realized that each new day was really an arbitrary division of time.
It’s all one day punctuated by midnights. 🙂
Same with years.
May we each have a blessed and prosperous 2016 culminating in the removal (and trial) of the current regime.
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Went through a phase, a lifetime ago, in which I tried to drink everything available and kiss every woman in the place on New Year’s Eve.
No longer interests me. Doubt that I’ve averaged more than 4 or 5 ounces of booze a year for the past 30, and have spent most of the NYEs in bed with a pillow over my head to drown out the redneck firecrackers that go on from about 2330 to 0100.
Wife used to be big on corned beef & cabbage for NYD, an acquired custom she picked up from my Scots-Irish mother, but now it’s gotta be blackeye peas, cornbread, and ham. Not sure why . . . maybe just ‘cuz we’ve lived on the Gulf Coast since 1984.
She do like her traditions, even if they’re not ones she growed up with. ‘Course bein a Pinay, ANYthing is sufficient reason for a feast in her opinion.
Think I’ve ferreted out the reason I no longer participate in rituals and customs — my mind has selected and embellished those memories it wants to keep and discarded the ones it didn’t like. Logic then tells me that no matter how hard I try, I’ll never be able to re-live or re-discover or re-visit the times and places and thrills d’antan. So I don’t.
She wants very much to go back and visit the places where she grew up (Sorsogon, on the south tip of Luzon, and Tarlac). I refuse to go, telling her that those places and times we like to remember just don’t exist any more and we’d be disappointed in what we’d find there now.
Fortunately I have a very creative memory which makes not only history but her AND me as well turn out better each time I revisit the past, one of those “the older I get, the better I used to be” syndromes.
A fertile imagination working on recollected images and emotions from past events creates a neat place to spend one’s time when the eyesight goes and the knees give out.
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Not a partier … I enjoy a quiet evening at home. I bring in the new year with a toast … then it’s off to bed and my plea for God’s blessings for the upcoming year.
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Mr. AOW was the party animal here — before his stroke, that is.
But even before his stroke, we had tamped down our New Year’s Eve celebrations, mainly because the VFW we frequented stopped having dances. Oh, how I loved those dances! I danced with every man there. The best dancers of all were the WW2 veterans, most of whom are gone now. **sigh**
This year, we’re staying home for New Year’s Even dinner. I’m baking an Omaha Steaks Meat Lover’s Lasagna; we’ll welcome the heating up of the kitchen as the weather here has now turned chillier. We do have egg nog and Jack Black for the midnight toast. If we even stay up that long.
I’d break out a bottle of champagne — except that once the bottle is opened, I must drink the whole thing. Yikes! A looped AOW means that I’m even blunter than usual and start phoning everyone to tell them exactly what I think.
I do wish that our neighbors hadn’t moved away. Back in the day, we used to play Trivial Pursuit all night long on New Year’s Eve. Great fun!
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Bocopro,
About NYD dinner, my mother always fixed some kind of traditional fare. But now that she’s gone (since 1987), I tend to fix ham-and-bean soup. That’s what I’m doing this year, but we’re skipping the cornbread this time around.
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Z,
You asked: If you were in New York City, would you go to Time Square tonight?
Both Mr. AOW and I say, “No!”
Even in our younger days, we were never much interested in being in Times Square on New Year’s Eve.
But on New Year’s Day, Mr. AOW attended the Rose Parade back when he lived in Pasadena. His father’s office (dentist) was close by, so Mr. AOW’s family always got a great view without fighting the crowds down on street level.
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AOW….that’s a dream, to know someone who worked or lived on the Rose Parade route and doesn’t have to fight the crowds! So did Mr. AOW grow up in L.A.? Pasadena? I knew he had ties here. And that must have been SO much fun dancing with the vets.
We did a USO show here in Long Beach some years ago…fabulous show using Forties songs, etc., and all those vets STOOD UP at the end while we all sang some patriotic song ( I forget which one)….we hadn’t expected that and could barely get through the singing for the tears.
Ya, THOSE guys were not only patriotic and brave but THEY COULD DANCE THE JITTERBUG!
I’d never go to Times Square, either…even before terror threats….What the heck are those ‘pens’ they herd folks into? This morning on FOX, Greg Jarrett asked the woman on the ground there reporting if she saw any portapotties! She said she didn’t…Jarrett then said he’d asked Arthel Neville and she said “bathrooms? it DEPENDS” (cute!) But, seriously…who’d stand there for HOURS AND HOURS? to watch a ball come down and kiss your friends for 2 minutes? Still, many people seem to have a blast!
And playing Trival Pursuit sounds like great fun!
Ed, it’s arbitrary, but the acknowledgement of those changes is what makes life rich, I think? have a great one!
Mustang…I’m with you.
bocopro..I’m so glad your fertile imagination is so full of neat things to look back on…and even to enhance. We need to do that! Funny how the human spirit usually remembers only the good times. I’ve heard that from people who are divorced, that they mostly remember the good times of that marriage.
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We live in the ultimate party city of Vegas and they’re expecting another 300,000 revelers to party on The Strip. Not us! We seldom go there anyway, let alone tonight. Too many “doe-doe’s”. In bed by our usual time of 10 (or as Bocobpro prefers, 2200 hours!). I guess we’re all just a bunch of old poops, huh
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No to New Years fest. My favorite was a ‘block party’ we did within the 12-unit apartment building I lived in at the time. Most people drifted in and out of 2 of the apartments. It was festive but not noisy or boisterous (conversation, not music). No one had to drive, and it was fun.
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Yes, Z, Mr. AOW hails from Pasadena.
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The only NYE I ever anticipated was Y2k, and that was pleasantly a let down.
The generator I bought to celebrate it served it’s purpose again a couple days ago when we lost power due to the ice storm.
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Mal, you’re anything but an old poop!
Baysider, that does sound nice….
Ed…we lived in Paris for Y2k….My husband knew nothing would happen, but I was more concerned….we were happy it passed peacefully. Glad your generator came in handy!
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@AOW: “once the bottle is opened, I must drink the whole thing.” Uh-uh. Try Risotto alla champagne. 🙂
AOW’s comment about parade viewing reminds me of the times we’d go to the float barn in the week before New Years to watch them working on the floats before they were finished – but finished enough to ooh and aah.
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If you’re a grinch, so am I. I don’t really care that it’s New Year’s but put on my party face for my husband. He’s a sweet guy, I’m the anti-social one in the corner. No, I’m not shy, I just don’t like great unwashed en masse. *giggle* Much prefer the vis–à–vis type of interaction. Anyway, here’s wishing everyone here a very Happy New Year. Only one more year of the train wreck to go (hopefully). Stay safe and I’ll catch ya on the flip side.
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Like many, I have become less of a party animal as I age. I am looking forward to spending SOME of New Year’s Eve with my grandchildren, and then coming home to a solitary drink and a warm bed.
I will go out and buy a bottle of good whiskey, but that is about as far as our celebrations go nowadays. New Year’s Day will be a boring day because there will be nothing on TV of interest.
I am looking forward to 2016, not because of the possibility that Obama will go to Hell, but because we are planning a few short trips to see relatives. In addition I plan on going to the biggest Hamfest in the world at Dayton Ohio in May. Ham radio nerds like me always have something to anticipate.
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Netflix is hosting a fake NYE countdown early to fool the kids into going to bed early.
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Our most memorable New Year’s party was in 1970. I was a new graduate engineer, on a new job. We were in our first house, and celebrated all these things by throwing a big party, and inviting all our friends and some new colleagues. We had lots of bottles of fizzy, phony champagne, and a good bit of bourbon and other liquors. We served steak and shrimp fondue.
I don’t ever remember being more hung-over, or having had a better time than that one New Year’s party. Somebody (Jerry) brought a camera and to this day there are some embarrassing pictures of yours truly out there somewhere in the firmament.
I was 25 yrs old, and my wife was 23.
Those were the days.
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Prospero Ano Nuevo, Z!
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Bay, that risotto sounds good….champagne can also be wonderful in a salad dressing!
Sparky! One more year of the train wreck is right…but a even some of my ‘not QUITE so conservative’ friends think O’s planning on martial law and continuing as president. I think that’s nuts, but they’re convinced!
Bob…when I read Hamfest, I thought of EATING HAM! And, I guess you’re not a football fan, huh? Sweet to hear your memory of that happy NYE when you were younger!
FJ…Gracias, Senor….et a toi!
Ed, is that real? Hilarious! That might have been good for Mr. Z … “but honey, it IS midnight!” 🙂
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I am into just staying home with hubby and fixing some snacks and a little Baily’s
There is a saying “You know you are from NY if you never went to TimesSquares on New Years Eve”
Happy New Year all. Hope it is a better one than the last 7
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Martial law . . . not entirely out of the realm of possibility. I’ve long believed that Soetoro will not make a classy exit from the catbird seat. And even if he DOES relinquish power voluntarily because it’s clear he doesn’t have the breadth and depth of support to effect a coup, he’ll still make it all about him somehow.
His grip on reality is tenuous, at best, and his power to assess the nation’s mood is like a teenage boy’s judgment while tipsy on beer and out with a girl of questionable credentials in Daddy’s Buick while LeRoy is following in the Pimpmobile.
He just doesn’t get it, isn’t even capable of comprehending the principles of management and leadership, just my-way-or-the-highway despotism cloaked in a tattered system of carefully selected laws.
As for the job of PotUS, he never really liked or even wanted the responsibility, only the perks and power, and that he will have difficulty surrendering it is a given; that he has considered means of maintaining it beyond his Constitutionally limited term of office is simply inarguable.
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Lisa….sounds…say HI to hubby from me! I have some shrimp and decided to indulge in pasta …am experimenting with cream/butter/lemon sauce on the pasta and shrimp…mmmm
Am kind of looking forward to watching Eric Bolling and Kimberley Guilfoyle on FOX…and clicking around the other channels…all but CNN; I think the Anderson COoper/Kathy what’s her name thing is GROSS…she never stops making me feel dirty…weird.
bocopro; I read the Dana Perino autobiography the last two days and found it interesting that Obama and Michelle have been so kind to her “when nobody was looking”…I can’t STAND the man but I did appreciate, also, his having brought up how to raise his daughters in the White House when the five persidents met in the Oval Office about 7 years ago….Perino says they had a few minutes and he brought that up. I was rather impressed. But I CAN’T stand the man and haven’t been pulled in, don’t worry, anybody!
By the way, the Perino book’s a very good one….REALLY good insight on Bush…all amazingly good; what good character and calm and, also, VERY good actions “when nobody was looking”…I came out of the book respecting GWB even more than I have. She inscribed the book because she knows some of my relatives so that was a fun Christmas gift! Since my name is very unusual (please, those of you who know it, do NOT use it tonight), it’s fun when I find that people I admire have written it…
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Dubya deserves much respect, and I am fully willing to give it to him as a man and as a loyal patriot who tried his best.
The problem with him is that his best simply wasn’t good enough; he was in over his head. I can show respect for a guy who gives it his best shot, even when he fails, especially when he’s likable in the first place.
Soetoro, OTOH, I have no more use for than I have for saccharine or for hemorrhoids. He symbolizes all that went wrong with Affirmative Action programs and could do us and the rest of the world greater service by volunteering as a javelin catcher for the Olympics.
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These sorts of things are all designed to bring single males and females together for the most part imo. Or to cause people to buy stuff. Once you are together, who cares. It’s just another day. Agreeing with how you adressed the hoiiday… Happy New year everyone. It going to be challenging from a USA libterty point of view, meaning obama being even more out of control, and repubblekins even more useless.
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Boco – I’m 100% with you on obama not going quietly. At this point though, I give Dubya no credit for anything. I grade him an F on all counts.
He did nothing good domestically, I’ll never forgive him for DHA and TSA. None of his campaign ideas amounted to anything, ie. Tax reform. He did nothning good foreign policywise, as we now see the ME in flames. He did nothng good Gitmo-wise. Those people should have been dealt with on his watch. He did nothing good Afghanistan-wise. I’ll give him a pass on thinking Iraq could be a unified country, but A-stan??? No way. We should have been out of there are soon as we figured obama, I mean osama wasn’t there anymore.
I also have concluded Bush Sr was a complete waste of time and that Jeb will even be worse than the other two if it happens.
Have a great New Year 🙂
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DHS..
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Happy New Year. We watched a movie at our daughter’s house. War Room. It is a Christian film, and I think you will like it, Z.
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War Room is the best! Except for maybe Woodlawn. 🙂
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