Because if there is, I'm it this year. I've never been one to go out on NYE. In 57 years, I've been "out" on NYE exactly twice: once during my college years (lame party where the only thing going on was copious consumption of alcoholic beverages...and I'm a teetotaler) and once during one of Cleveland's milestone birthday years when they had free public transportation on NYE. My bff and I went to ONE bar with live jazz music and called it a night around 1:00 AM. I also babysat on a couple NYEs for my brother--once at their house, once at ours.
Anyways...most years, I followed certain traditions. I watched the ball drop. I ate snacks and drank something festive (usually sparkling juice, although sometimes the best I could do was sparkling water). For quite a few years, I rented a bunch of movies and watched them both on NYE and NYD. After Pablo mentioned it, I ate 12 grapes at the stroke of midnight and tried not to choke. For a while, I was wearing red underwear on NYE/NYD until someone informed me that the "luck" that was supposed to bring me in the new year was not general luck but sexy times luck <blushing>. On NYD, we had pork for luck (because a pig roots forward) and black-eyed peas for (financial) luck. And just in general, I reflected back on the old year and felt optimistic about the new year.
This year? Eh. No movies (nothing I wanted to see, really). No snacks (I was still full from dinner). I totally forgot to get anything festive to drink though I *did* make myself a glass of Canada Dry cranberry ginger ale topped with a splash of Southern Comfort vanilla spice (non-alcoholic!) eggnog (don't knock it till you've tried it). No special clothing. No grapes. I actually dozed off 10 minutes before the ball dropped and woke at 12:03 AM to a chime informing me I had a text (from a friend wishing me a happy new year). I *did* make shredded pork in the crockpot and opened a can of black-eyed peas last night but that was more tradition than luck. I reasoned that doing all those things on NYE/NYD for luck hasn't really worked (I'm not a millionaire) so why keep doing them?
If 2026 goes REALLY pear-shaped for me, I will go back to my NYE/NYD traditions and maybe even search out a few new ones.
