Why I Hate New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve is overhyped, overrated, and overdone. I get the excitement - a new year, a new beginning, a day off of work. Woohoo. But why, oh why, is there so much pressure for it to be Legen -wait for it - dary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dqf1BmN4Dag

Every year I get excited for New Year's Eve and every year it is a let down. The problem? Huge expectations. I feel like nearly every movie and every TV show hypes the night up to ridiculous epic proportions. "Friends" has a few good realistic New Year's Eve episodes (not to mention one of the BEST episodes ever....The One With All The Resolutions Season 5, Episode 11) and the "Sex and the City" movie showed less than perfect moments at midnight. I am thankful for those moments because my own New Year's Eves have always seemed to be below par.

December 31, 2008
My first year out of college and I was dating a nice enough guy, but really I should have known this was coming. He was nice, but being nice doesn't translate to making all your dreams come true. My expectations of a New Years in Madison were of epic proportions; I knew the bartenders so I wouldn't have to wait for drinks, I knew the bouncers so I wouldn't have to wait outside in the cold, I even had a new dress to rock on the big night. Unfortunately it snowed, a lot. It's Wisconsin, I should have expected that wrench in the plans. But I braved the weather anyway and wore the open toed shoes that matched the dress with a great going out coat that I usually wouldn't risk on such a big night (drunkies spilling on it is my big fear). The night ended with the group splitting up, someone stealing my coat, getting frost bite on a toe or two, and my date not giving a hoot if I was there or not. I ended up heading home around 1am, then woke up at 5am and decided to rally. I headed down the street to another bar, one that was closing around 8am. Most of the city's bartenders were partying there since they had closed their own establishments a few hours earlier... holy shit show. People were falling over, making out, crying, puking, eating insane amounts of french fries, and above all, spilling drinks. When I finally made it to the bar, the bartenders were too drunk to make a good drink and I ended up with a mimosa made with white wine instead of champagne. Don't try it, it's not good. I finally admitted defeat and headed back to my apartment.

December 31, 2009
Best plans ever! I was going to drive down to Chicago with Kay and her boyfriend. We were going to meet up with my boyfriend and hit up a club downtown. We had the tickets and again, I bought the best dress. I even bought the best shoes. It was going to be epic.
Not. So. Much.
The night started falling apart a few nights earlier. Kay's boyfriend decided he didn't want to go to Chicago and promised that he would take her there some other weekend if she would just give in and stay in Wisconsin for New Year's Eve. She caved. I can't blame her, he's her boyfriend and they are still together. I was a bit unhappy though - I was pretty jazzed to spend New Year's with my best friend! Oh well, I still was going to be with my boyfriend and I would get to wear my new dress. I just had to get through a day of work first.
I woke up earlllly and headed to the stores I had to check before heading down to Chicago. Everything began going wrong immediately. I ripped open my finger around 9am and there was quite a bit of blood. The store manager had to dig up a bandaid and helped me clean it up. Did I let it get to me? No! I chatted with other workers about my exciting plans. The day was moving along and I didn't even mind the grouchy store managers I invariably met. I  realized I was hitting a time crunch and started to pick up the pace. I was down to just a few more stores when I got the phone call - two more stores on my list. Eff. Ok, I can do this! I'll just skip lunch and speed. I was back in good spirits when I got the second call - a rep calling to say I had checked stores on his list. Yep, that's right. Three of the stores that I had spent hours at, hauling beer and listening to angry store owners bitch about the holiday, yep, someone else was also covering them. Our bosses hadn't coordinated anything. I then received a third call; another store I had checked was another rep's. She was confused too. AWESOME. So basically I wasted my time, injured myself, and was about to faint from low blood sugar. I called a friend and had a breakdown. There was absolutely no way I could make it to Chicago in plenty of time now. I would have to battle the rest of the universe entering the city after work, probably have to hire a crane to move a car so that I could steal a parking spot, and then still have no time to look as great as I wanted to. I was angry and exhausted by the time I got home so I took Nyquil and went to sleep around 10pm. I embraced the New Year in the morning.

December 31, 2010
Yeah, you're right. It hasn't happened yet. Here's the thing though; 2010 has been amazing. More than I could ever imagine for myself. There have definitely been tough times, like the death of a close family friend and the breakup with 2009 boyfriend. Overall though, it has been wonderful. New friends, new food, new experiences - can't beat that. Which is why I'm terrified that the amazingly awesome, potentially legendary plans we have for New Year's are all going to go horribly wrong. We are heading to Budapest - an idea I had months ago and finally everyone got on board. I'm meeting up with 6 girlfriends I lived with this summer and the best words to describe them are fun and ridiculous. I'll be in a gorgeous city with great friends. How could that go wrong? WELL. The guys started changing New Year's plans a few days ago. No one wanted to drive so we'd have to take a train. Then no one wanted to go to Budapest/train wasn't an option/I'm not really sure what exactly happened and then they wanted to go to Barcelona. WHAT?! That is not Budapest. My friends are not meeting us in Barcelona. And it is about twice as far, and we'd have to drive through about 18 other awesome cities to get there. I never did figure out why they chose Barcelona. I was getting so mad that I wanted to punch a chicken in the face or take a bat to a tree. Fortunately, I checked Facebook today and apparently the original Budapest plans are back on. I have NO idea what happened that led to this massive, heart attack inducing circle, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed they don't change their minds again.

So what do I do? Do I start setting the bar lower? Tell myself not to expect New Year's to be anything different from a regular Friday night? I guess that just feels like giving up to me. I want New Year's Eve to be legendary. I want an epic evening of drinking and dancing. I want to wear my 2009 New Year's dress and damn it, I want compliments! But I'm tired of being super excited and then being disappointed. Paige has always told me to hold out for the great guys, never to settle for less than perfect love stories. Ok, she didn't say it like that, but that is the life lesson I will take away from my friendship with her. I feel like I should be able to apply that concept to New Year's Eve. I shouldn't have to settle for lame New Year's experiences - but that also means I have to be an active participant. I have to make sure it becomes legendary. Epic nights don't just happen to people, we make them happen for ourselves.

So here is my decision: Whatever happens, this year is going to be LEGEN - wait for it - DARY!

An Untraditional Thanksgiving

For all of my international friends, Thanksgiving is a wonderful American holiday that consists of friends and family getting together and eating copious amounts of very good food. The traditional Thanksgiving, the one only a few of my friends actually have, is the whole family at one house eating turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. There are variations of these foods, and at some houses children get to sit at their own kid’s table, but pretty much everyone serves the same thing and the family gathers to give thanks for all their blessings this year. Other traditional traditions are: people watching the Macy’s Day parade on television (or in person if they live in New York), men watching the Cowboys and Lions play (not each other) while women wrestle with turkeys in the kitchen, friends playing American football in the afternoon (I am glad we don’t have that tradition as it was the season’s first snow), families playing board games after dinner, and everyone drinking quite a bit.

Before I tell you about my untraditional Thanksgiving, I should also elaborate on the night before, and the morning after Thanksgiving. The holiday is always held on the 4^th Thursday of the November, making the 4^th Wednesday the biggest drinking night of the year. This is because everyone knows they have the next day off work, so they meet up with their buddies at the local tavern and drink more beers than you can imagine. Unfortunately, this also makes it one of the most dangerous nights of the year, as there are drunk drivers left and right. Then everyone fights a hangover with fattening foods and more alcohol, before passing out in front of the fireplace. Well, perhaps the people who live down in Florida pass out in front of palm trees, I don’t know. We have snow here so we have fireplaces. Then crazy people wake up insanely early to participate in Black Friday.

Black Friday is always the Friday after Thanksgiving. This year it was also my 25^th birthday woohoo! Different story though. Getting back on track, Black Friday is one of the best – and scariest – days of the year. Stores open anywhere between 3-5am (yes, as in when all the Europeans are still out clubbing) and people literally trample others to get to TVs, IPads, and digital cameras first. There are amazing deals on everything from electronics to furniture, and people can save a lot of money if they are very invested in the Black Friday experience. I used to shop for clothes on Black Friday, but those deals aren’t nearly as good as ones on flat screen TVS and new cars. And I’m not kidding – people actually stampede into stores for these deals. See the video below that someone shot at Best Buy (an electronics store) this morning:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZJVZ2p223o&feature=fvwk

So that pretty much sums up a traditional Thanksgiving in the U.S. I got a bit off track though, as I was planning to write about my own, untraditional Thanksgiving. I live with my mom and we are the only two people in our family who live in the Midwest (aka we live about a 3 hour plane ride form anyone else in the family). We celebrate Thanksgiving with our neighbors and the rest of the guest list changes each year. This time it was us, our neighbors, another set of family friends, and our neighbors’ daughter and son-in-law. So unlike everyone who relies on their giant families for a huge Thanksgiving dinner, we always have a nice mixture of friends and family. It’s been like this as long as I can remember; the friends change with who is available each year, but it always a wonderful group and everyone has a great time. Let’s move on to the food. Unlike the turkey and stuffing of the traditional holiday, we serve lobster tails and steak cuts instead. This year we had grilled lobster tails, a huge beef roast, homemade squash biscuits (my favorite), and multiple salads. For dessert we had champagne with homemade pumpkin pie (made from a real roasted pumpkin!), walnut pie, and homemade apple cake. Oh, and homemade whipped cream! As in she said, hang on let me get the whipped cream, and 5 minutes later, instead of her returning with a spray can of it, we hear the mixer whirring. She literally disappeared into the next room and made her own whipped cream. Then she served coffee, which everyone promptly added Crown, Baileys, or Frangelico to. All in all, it was fantastic! Here are some photos from the day:

The Dinner Table

Grilled Lobster Tails

Our house with a dusting of snow

I hope all my American and Canadian (but yours was earlier, right?) Thanksgivings were as wonderful as mine was. We were blessed with a beautiful snow, the first of the season, and as we live next door, we were also blessed with being able to totter home after all the food and drinks. To my international friends, I think you should all spend a day having a Friendsgiving. This is when you invite all of your friends over and everyone brings a dish to share. You could keep to our traditional foods if you want, but you could also make it whatever theme you would like. Thanksgiving is all about spending time with loved ones – while consuming mass quantities of delicious food. So make a guest list, tell everyone to bring something whether it be wine or dessert, and have a fabulous day remembering how lucky you are to have friends and family in your life.