How do you feel about New Year's Eve?

Looks like nyquill and movies for the evening. Aside from ringing in this new year with a head cold it generally marks the end of holiday laziness and time to get back to business.

Over the last decade I mostly try to greet the New Year well rested and feeling good. I have seen the ball drop dozens of times, I’ve drunk too much, eaten weird crap, kissed some very odd men, now I hang with the dogs, follow the celebrations around the world until London, have a nice dinner, and go to bed around ten.
I have become boring and content. I like it.

I tend to stay home on New Year’s if I can help it. It’s usually frigid although this year is very different.

I’m in Boston now with my daughter. We’re returning home today, leaving mid -day. It’s warm and sunny today. We’ll probably stop for lunch or dinner and maybe a little shopping on the two and a half hour trip home.

Now with the terrorism around, I’m happy not to go out or even have the urge to go out.

I tend not to reflect too much on the past year, but instead look forward to the year ahead. I always hope for good things and health and happiness for myself and my family and friends.

I love it, even when I’m not celebrating with other people. I don’t dwell on what happened in the past year, or make resolutions or predictions for the coming year. I just like that we have it as one of our milestone holidays – I find those kinds of meditations set one up for melancholy or despair, if not this year, then eventually. We all have bad years from time to time. I enjoy it as a purely calendrial holiday (ok, calendrial is not a word, but I am stumped to think of an adjective to do with measuring time by calendar). People’s personal lives don’t rise and fall on a January to December timetable, and I don’t think we should measure our successes or failures that way.

I once had a significant other who liked to raise a glass and talk about what a shitty year it had just been, every damned year. It really affected how I felt about him – I am at heart an optimist, and am not good at tolerating people with a perpetually grim outlook. I am rather about saying “Look! It’s a whole new year with a new name! Cool!”

That, and the champagne drinking.

Another excuse to drink too much and act a fool.

@dappled_leaves Either calendric or calendarial would work there.

I have hated New Year’s Eve since the vicissitudes of my single days. It peaked when, in the 70s, a good friend talked me into going to a party with her at someone’s house I didn’t know. The entire house was wall-to-wall bodies (raising arms to squeeze past each other), the noise level was off the charts, the decor was nightmarish (including a jungle room filled with animal skins and spears on the wall), and a bunch of strange men grabbed me and kissed me at midnight.

I like quiet evenings with a fire and my hubby and maybe a toast to the New Year.

Pretty much meh anymore—except for my never-miss trek to Dallas to attend my longtime friend’s annual bash.

Probably be asleep by 10 pm, as usual, although I am thinking about making a nice meal. Christmas I fixed Australian red shrimp sauteed with garlic in butter, fresh asparagus and campanelle noodles in a lemon butter Béchamel sauce, and garlic toast.
Resounding hit.
Sounds good for this evening. Maybe a movie.

Tomorrow we have our huge, blow-out, antique auction of the year. Long day and lots of people.

She is very pretty.

Honestly though, I hate all the ruckus and noise from the fireworks.

I like to reflect on the year. Many years I’ve bitterly said good riddance, but lately my years have been great. I used to be home for Christmas break on New Year’s Eve each year, which was pretty low-key – my family would pretty much just pull out a bottle of wine and watch the ball drop. But now that I’m out of college I’m celebrating with friends and with my significant other for the first time, and I plan to have a fun night. Finally get a new year’s kiss for the first time!

NYE is usually a low key event for me. I went to a party last year and most people left by 10:30. Tonight I am going out to a concert of one of my favorite groups (The Decemberists) which is something I would do on any night they played.

If I go out, I usually try to be home by 11. There are good reasons it is called amateur night.

My big NY ritual tradition is to go to a bookstore in Berkeley that has an annual calendar sale starting on January 1. Any three calendars for $10.

@zenvelo: NY tradition = Berkeley?

^^ New Year’s

@janbb : gotcha, thanks. Silly me.

It’s the ultimate begin-again day of the year – and it’s happening today!

I love, love, love New Year’s Eve!!
I love watching all the year-in-review specials, all the bowl games, and the ball drop!

I generally go to a good friends to ring it in, but this year I’m opting to spend some quality time with my barefoot bubbly buddy ; )

@marinelife “Either calendric or calendarial would work there.”

Thank you!

Meh. I’m going to sleep. Going to Disneyland January 1st.

It’s probably my least favorite holiday.

Celebrating the New Year is important here in the islands. There are many people of East Asian decent, so their traditions have been embraced with gusto. There have been random fireworks banging every once in a while for about the past week. Tonight will be a cacophony. It will start in the evening, and at midnight, all hell will break loose. I will close all my windows to keep the smoke out and be in bed early. The noise will wake me, so I’ll know when the new year begins.

I get reflective at this time of year. I think that’s normal. I look forward to the new year. It’s a time to make plans for launching a fresh start. I stopped making resolutions. Now, I set a theme for the new year.

This weekend, a friend and I will venture out to see Star Wars. I’m looking forward to it.

To all jellies, Hau’oli Makahiki Hou!

As always I will be there for ‘the bells’. I look back on past years and I wonder about the future and I wish everyone A Happy New Year!

I like fireworks, so I look forward to them. Unfortunately I live in Florida, so the bonus game is figuring out how far away the celebratory 12-gauge blasts are and whether you’re out of range.

I have to admit to being disappointed by New Year’s since Y2K promised me technological Armageddon and failed to deliver.

I enjoy the prospect of wonderful things yet to happen.
I ‘tsk’ because when I finally remember to write 2015 on everything, it ends! So now I have to start the written ‘2016’ training! But-hey- I finally quit putting 19—down first! Fifteen years in…
I am thankful that we, as in human beings, haven’t set off the bomb yet, have hopefully realized a bit more how intricate and important the World’s workings and non-human species really are.
With relief that I can still keep going, because I have it so much better and safer than so many others. That I did my best at making some things better or easier for others.
And that it’s going to be alright and some positive things are ahead.
That I got through the year without biting, pinching nor purposefully tripping anyone!
Happy New Year folks- here’s to a fun new year!
Clink !!!

Hate it. Try to hide under the bed covers till it is over.

And now it sounds like the russians have arrived again.
I hate fireworks.

But I hear that Dubai has some great fireworks going on right now.

I feel it is an over commercialed day to drain the pocket out of many who are willing to be duped out of it, and to make themselves feel better they use it as an excuse to get drunk and act a fool. Why celebrate a year you do not know if you will see the end of? I say better to celebrate the year you are leaving. A portion of the people celebrating a New Year will be gone before the firecrackers that popping in July.

My last wild New Years was in 2008. The last number of years I just stay in, relax, and go to bed by 10. I’m in @canidmajor‘s camp, content and boring is fine for me these days,
If I stay up past 11 I feel like crap anyway, I needs my middle aged beauty rest, haha

Just another night.

I’m not really into it. I never have been. I read a news article where Jennifer Lawrence said New Year’s Eve was always a disappointment, and I could relate, especially when I was younger. The feeling that you should go out and party and have a fun time, but it never quite lived up to its promise.

I’d really much rather go to dinner, watch a good film and snuggle up with my husband to watch the fireworks on the TV. I’m perfectly happy to see the New Year in quietly. I don’t tend to reflect much on the previous year (I’ve already done that by NY’s eve). I do think about what I want to achieve over the new year. I think about my hopes for my family. My husband and I often talk about our goals for the year. What we want to do, where we want to go. That type of thing.

I like to make it fun our daughter because that’s what my parents did for me. We play games, watch comedy and dance to Just Dance.

That, @dammitjanetfromvegas, is what it is really all about! Bottom line. Excellent!
Good for you! And she will remember it all of her life. Enjoy!
Happy New Year….

I comply with my national stereotype and love New Year. Unfortunately my husband also complies with his national stereotype and is quite meh about it. I’m Scottish and he’s English. This year for the second year ever we went out. 15–2 to meh…

@Stinley as my wife says of me “he’s trainable, but a slow learner.”

@stanleybmanly that may be true since the two occasions have been this year and last. He even said yes to going to London next year. That was after midnight though so I’m not banking on it.

To be fair he does like the Scottish New Year’s Day tradition of having a steak pie. It’s cooking at the moment and does smell so good!

@msh Thank you. Happy New Year!