New Year's Eve: Whats the Big Deal?

New Year's Eve just hasn;t been anything special in my house for the past several years. Most of the time, it is the most over rated holiday. My wife is usually in bed by 9:00 and if we're lucky, she;ll wake up at midnight to come wish everyone a Happy New Year's.

I have spent midnight on New Year's Eve for the past several years in our home with my now 10 year old son. As sort of a tradition, at midnight, we go outside into the driveway with noise makers and silly string, which Santa usually brings as stocking stuffers, and make lots of noise while shooting each other with colored silly string. We do this while looking up and down the street, looking for others doing the same but usually, the neighborhood is pretty quiet.

That has been the extent of my New Year's Eve's over the past several years. My older kids usually have their own plans so I get to do some celebrating with my youngest child, which he looks forward to every year.

What Happened to those Exciting New Year's Eve's?

It's been awhile since I've had a New Year's Eve worth mentioning. One of the best ever was back in college when myself and one of my roommates decided to have a party in our off campus apartment. As school was out for Christmas break, most of the attendees were hometown friends, where hometown was only about a half hour from campus. Well we never expected that close to 50 people would show up. Needless to say it was a rocking party, we were hailed as great party hosts, and we spent the entire next day cleaning which included scrubbing champagne stains of the celing!!!

My first year out of college, I lived with three friends in a rented house in Morris Plains, NJ and we decided to have a very large New Year's Eve party. We invited everyone and anyone that we could think of.The best thing was, everyone showed up. We had college friends travel from far to attend. We had hometown friends travel from far to attend. We had people we met in Martinique attend. And since 3 of the 4 of us living in the house worked in the same office building, almost everyone from work showed up, including the security guards. It was the party to top all parties. Fortunately we rented a fairly good size house. The dancing and drinking went on until the wee hours in the morning. Since so many people traveled from great distances, we must have had about 30+ people spend the night, which made things even better since the party really neer had to stop.

The morning after included a co-ed touch football game on the front lawn prior to everyone packing up and heading home. It was definitely one of my most memorable New Year's Eve's.

After marriage, one of the best New Year's weekends had 5 couples, all good friends of ours, rent a cabin out in the Poconos and we spent the entire weekend their. It was a great time shared with a bunch of great friends.

Finally, one of the last times we did anything on New Year's Eve was simply going over my wife's friends house and us along with her husband spent a ery quiet New Year's Eve simply watching movies on TV. I think a few of us dozed off prior to midnight. The one thing I remember the most about that night, was when my wife and I were leaving shortly after midnight. By the time we got into our car and started the engine, every lignt in the house was already off and our hosts were probably in bed and asleep before I could even get the car into drive.

So you can see, I've had both the good and the bad in terms of New Year's Eve experiences. So why does everyone think it's mandatory that you must go out, go crazy, drink alot, and force yourself to try to have a good time. Some years I just couldn't wait to have them end. Those were just some very bad years where all I wanted to do was to go to sleep early and wake up in a new year with memories of the past year forgotten.

I just wanted to share with you some of my thoughts and experiences of New Yea'rs Eve. I'd love to hear you share with us some of your most memorable or least memorable New Year's Eve's. Do you fell obligated to go out on New Year's Eve? Maybe at the end, we can even vote on the best and worst New Year's Eve activities. Thanks!!