How to have fun at Hogmanay
Jan. 1st, 2006 05:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhythmaningI don’t get too excited about New Year’s Eve; too often, it has been a disappointing anti-climax. Fortunately, my wife agrees with me.
So instead of indulging in a mad round drinking, parties and carousing, we have a really great time at home.
This habit – almost a tradition, now, I guess – started with the Millennium, a few years back. There was so much hype and noise and people demanding attendance at this or that party, that we decided to say No! and stay at home, drink a lot of champagne and wine, eat some great food, and catch up with some old videos. We had a marvellous time – just the two of us. We even managed to see some of Edinburgh’s famous fireworks from our kitchen window.
The following year, we went to stay with some friends on the west coast – Scotland that is (though for those of you who want to imagine us frolicking in San Francisco, Los Angeles or Sunnydale, please feel free). This was a lovely invitation, and we leaped at it – it is a great place, with great people. Our friend’s parents were having their usual large house party for Hogmanay; the other guests were a whole tribe of cousins from Zimbabwe – they were related to Rhodes, so there were a lot of cousins. We didn’t really hit it off with the cousins; they managed to make Mugabe look like he’d got the right idea. Plus my partner had a dreadful cold and wasn’t feeling sociable – in fact she was feeling awful. We left on New Year’s Day when the threat of heavy snowfalls gave us an excuse to leave behind the right-wing exiles; the thought of being snowed in – usually a wonderful idea to be treasured – had us running from the hills.
(One of my friends spent most of that New Year’s Eve drunkenly bullying us to get married. I had been thinking of proposing, but I was buggered if I would be bullied into doing so just so a mate could enjoy a wedding party… I got very obstinate. It was only a couple of weeks later that it occurred to me that by stopping me proposing (even if he were not aware of it), he was still affecting what I was doing. So instead, I asked my now wife to marry me.)
The next year we went back to doing nothing, and loving it. My most favourite New Year’s Eve celebrations have been similarly low key: big parties have such high expectations associated with them, and an associated rate of disappointment. Quiet times spent with friends in isolated country cottages, log fires, whisky and snow (these occasions always seem to herald snow, at least in my memory).
This year, we did much the same: the same as last year, and the year before that. We drank champagne, a good Crozes-Hermitage and whisky; we ate asparagus, and rare roast filet of beef with scrumptious roast potatoes; we listened to some great music; and we watched the fireworks explode over Edinburgh, lighting up the sky.
We had a marvellous time. Together.
(Later, about two or three in the morning – New Year’s morning – I lay in bed, listening to screaming sirens in the distance, and a chorus of drunks heading back from the Hogmanay Street Party; and I was so glad I was me, and not them.)
So instead of indulging in a mad round drinking, parties and carousing, we have a really great time at home.
This habit – almost a tradition, now, I guess – started with the Millennium, a few years back. There was so much hype and noise and people demanding attendance at this or that party, that we decided to say No! and stay at home, drink a lot of champagne and wine, eat some great food, and catch up with some old videos. We had a marvellous time – just the two of us. We even managed to see some of Edinburgh’s famous fireworks from our kitchen window.
The following year, we went to stay with some friends on the west coast – Scotland that is (though for those of you who want to imagine us frolicking in San Francisco, Los Angeles or Sunnydale, please feel free). This was a lovely invitation, and we leaped at it – it is a great place, with great people. Our friend’s parents were having their usual large house party for Hogmanay; the other guests were a whole tribe of cousins from Zimbabwe – they were related to Rhodes, so there were a lot of cousins. We didn’t really hit it off with the cousins; they managed to make Mugabe look like he’d got the right idea. Plus my partner had a dreadful cold and wasn’t feeling sociable – in fact she was feeling awful. We left on New Year’s Day when the threat of heavy snowfalls gave us an excuse to leave behind the right-wing exiles; the thought of being snowed in – usually a wonderful idea to be treasured – had us running from the hills.
(One of my friends spent most of that New Year’s Eve drunkenly bullying us to get married. I had been thinking of proposing, but I was buggered if I would be bullied into doing so just so a mate could enjoy a wedding party… I got very obstinate. It was only a couple of weeks later that it occurred to me that by stopping me proposing (even if he were not aware of it), he was still affecting what I was doing. So instead, I asked my now wife to marry me.)
The next year we went back to doing nothing, and loving it. My most favourite New Year’s Eve celebrations have been similarly low key: big parties have such high expectations associated with them, and an associated rate of disappointment. Quiet times spent with friends in isolated country cottages, log fires, whisky and snow (these occasions always seem to herald snow, at least in my memory).
This year, we did much the same: the same as last year, and the year before that. We drank champagne, a good Crozes-Hermitage and whisky; we ate asparagus, and rare roast filet of beef with scrumptious roast potatoes; we listened to some great music; and we watched the fireworks explode over Edinburgh, lighting up the sky.
We had a marvellous time. Together.
(Later, about two or three in the morning – New Year’s morning – I lay in bed, listening to screaming sirens in the distance, and a chorus of drunks heading back from the Hogmanay Street Party; and I was so glad I was me, and not them.)
