Out with the old....

Now that another New Year's Eve is almost upon us, I thought I'd talk about some of my favorite New Year's Eve experiences from the past.

When I was a kid, we'd spend a lot of our winter breaks in Florida. We'd go to an Italian restaurant with our friends and their families and then hang out in one of the time-share condos to watch the ball drop. The last year that we were in Florida for a vacation, we went to a big party at my friend's uncle's house. It was a huge house and they had lots of good food. There were enough older kids that the adults got to go out and the younger kids had people looking after them. It was a fun party and we rang in 1990 there.

After that vacation, I ended up babysitting on NYE for a few years in a row. We'd watch the ball drop at 11 since it was an hour earlier in Illinois. Then I'd tell the kids that it was really the new year and we'd throw confetti and later use it to decorate their house.

On the last night of 1994, I was involved with "Rocky Horror" and NYE was on a Saturday. My parents drove me to the theater in a snowstorm and I had a blast ringing in the new year with my friends there. After the show, the cast (which I was part of at the time) went to an apartment (owned by two of the cast members) to all hang out together and party through the night. That was an interesting experience in itself. Let's just say I didn't do anything I shouldn't, but I still felt the effects from everyone else who was doing this thing. I can't remember if I slept at all that night.

On the last night of 2001, I spent NYE in Israel. I was there for Birthright and completely jet lagged. I had no idea what time it was and almost missed the changing of the year altogether. The hotel had this party for all the people visiting for Birthright, even though Israel had celebrated their new year in September. I spent my first day of 2002 touring around Jerusalem. It was almost surreal.

On the last night of 2002, my husband (then boyfriend) and I went to the Olive Garden for dinner and then went to First Night Evanston and walked around in the freezing cold to the different shows and events going on. They had a hula hoop contest, where I realized that I could no longer hula hoop like I did during my Bar/Bat Mitzvah party days. One of the buildings hosted a dance, which is where we officially rang in the new year while dancing to big band music.

The next few years after that were spent in our home entertaining friends or at our friends' home just to hang out and watch the ball drop. Then, on the last night of 2008, we threw a party in our NJ home. We were surprised that some people from the community attended. We also had one of my close friends from NY over, as well as friends from Rhode Island who decided to stop by at the last minute on their way to Baltimore. They ended up staying over. It was a fun time and people got into playing Bananagrams for most of the evening.

Last year, we rang in the new year with a few close friends from our neighborhood. We spent most of the evening playing Loaded Questions and laughing so hard we couldn't think straight! We almost forgot to watch the ball drop.

This year, we're having my in-laws and some friends over for a Shabbat potluck dinner. I don't know if we'll stay up till midnight, but the kids are still going to bed at a somewhat normal time. I'm looking forward to it. Next year, we'll think about getting a sitter and go out for a night on the town....and maybe that sitter can start some NYE traditions that they'll get to blog about in the future.