Everyday Canvas

Celebrating the New Year's Eve

Prompt: What was your most memorable New Year's Eve and why?

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New Year’s Eve parties have always been memorable occasions during my very young and up to not-too-old years, as each was different in its own way. Here’s one memory.

Once, we were in a party with a hundred people or more where everyone knew everyone, by sight if not by name. It was a lavish party with a bar and lots of food. The organizer put people who had been close friends at the same table. Our table was a long rectangle that seated twelve people. We drank, ate, danced and had a great time.

About 11:30, each table received a bottle of champagne to celebrate the New Year’s beginning at midnight. Somehow, my dear hubby received the honors of opening the bottle. If there is one thing he hates is the popping sound and the bubbly foam sprouting up when opening that bottle of fizz. So he took his time pulling the cork half a millimeter at a time. People were saying things like, “You’ll finish opening that in the 21st century.” By the time he opened it, it was already midnight, and the other tables had already finished their bottles, but we had more fun joking about the New Year that came later for us.

Another type of New Year's celebration also happens on Times Square. When one of my sons was 22, he went there to see the ball drop. When he came back, he was very upset because it was so crowded that he couldn't see anything while we watched everything at home with friends. He kept telling me I shouldn’t let him go. Isn’t it always the mothers who shoulder the blame!

The Times Square tradition dates back to December 31, 1907, even though the balls (Turn that dirty mind off) have changed along with technology. * “As part of the 1907-1908 festivities, waiters in the fabled "lobster palaces" and other deluxe eateries in hotels surrounding Times Square were supplied with battery-powered top hats emblazoned with the numbers "1908" fashioned of tiny light bulbs.”

History says, until 1903, the largest New Year's Eve gathering of New Yorkers took place at Trinity Church on Wall Street and Broadway. * "The New York Times described the scene in 1897: The crowds came from every section of the city, and among the thousands, who cheered or tooted tin horns, as the chimes were rung out on the night, were many from New Jersey, Long Island, and even Staten Island."

For a New York City celebration, the best thing to do--if you could afford $4000-5000--is to reserve a place in Marriott Marquis with the view of the Ball, which is already sold out for this year, anyway. Even if I could afford that, I'd prefer the idea of celebrating 2016 with friends at home.

Happy 2016!

*http://www.timessquarenyc.org/events/new-years-eve/about-the-new-years-eve-ball/...