What are you doing New Year’s Eve?
I don’t usually do much of anything on New Year’s Eve, although I used to always try to watch the ball go down on TV. Staying up late is no problem for me, since I’m a night owl and always have been.
This year I’m going to continue my tradition and not do much of anything in the evening, and this year I bet a lot more people than usual will be doing the same. I plan to drink a tiny toast to the end of 2021, a year I’m pretty sure most people are not going to look back at with fondness.
But even when young, I had an aversion to New Year’s Eve. The idea of a night when you were supposed to have fun or else. The reminder of the speedy passage of time. The drinking. The obligatory midnight kiss, which wasn’t a fun moment if you didn’t like your date.
Once or twice I went to Times Square to see the ball go down in person. Curiously, those were some of my better New Year’s Eves. Maybe it was the people I was with those nights. We ate at Tad’s Steaks, just for laughs, but Tad’s wasn’t bad at all.
And two years ago the very last Tad’s in New York City closed down. I had no idea any of them had lasted that long.
So let’s drink to Tad’s:
The cafeteria-style chophouse is known for hawking inexpensive meat-and-potato dinners on red trays — meals that cost little more than $1 each when the first one opened in 1957. A steak lunch today can be had for as little as $9.
At its height, Tad’s had eight New York locations out of 28 nationwide. But come Jan. 5, 2020, the red neon sign in the window advertising “broiled” steaks at 761 Seventh Ave. will go dark — as will the vast grill that played host to smoky “steak shows,” where dozens of cuts could be grilled at once during the thick of lunch hour.
Happy New Year, everyone! Here’s to a wonderful 2022, full of love, joy, and good health!
[NOTE: Some of this appeared in a previous post.]
We’re actually going down the street for a drink or two this evening, home early, and then we’re going out to a restaurant tomorrow evening to celebrate a birthday. With any luck, we’ll get Omicron, be sniffly for two days, and be done with the whole thing.
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO NEO AND ALL THE COMMENTORS.
We will have Lobster and Shrimp, had to forego the King Crab Legs this year because the cost was prohibitive. Open a bottle sparkling wine, toast at 10PM MST, drink the rest of the bottle myself because my much Better Half will only have one glass.
On another note, we live 35 miles from the fires here in CO. For 13 yrs I worked right in the middle of that area and know it well. Just such a disaster for so many people. So far no fatalities which is good.
As an alum of UGA, going to watch the Dawgs. Along with a Vesper.
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/222518/vesper-cocktail/
We will, as usual, spend it at home with a bottle of champagne. Our elderly basset hound will, as usual, sleep.
I recall some nights of great parties. A few times those parties were in RVs parked in the Rose Bowl parking lot when USC had good football teams. We would walk over about midnight and watch the float builders finishing the floats before the morning parade. Good times.
Here’s hoping for a happier New Year for Neo and the commenters.
I like New Year’s. I like that it’s a universal holiday – it doesn’t matter what country you live in, or what religion you practice, it’s the New Year for everyone! I used to see the passage of time as sad, but now I see the importance of reflecting on the year that’s passed and looking forward to the future.
And I’m a cat owner, so I always have a New Year’s kiss!
Same thing I do every Friday: watch/listen to Friday Night Tights on youtube by way of the Nerdrotic channel. Usually a PG-13 stream, tho with the Jack Murphy stuff blowing up it may veer off a cliff tonight.
They usually stick with pop culture and roast those foibles. I would expect some shade to be cast on Disney, Marvel and Warner Brothers.
I too remember Tad’s – particularly the one on 6th Avenue between 8th and 9th streets. An OK low-cost meal.
Local fireworks display with my family & some of eldest’s friends who are in town.
It was good fun by the way.
Happy New Year y’all.
God bless your socks off in 2022!
Country music show in Venice, Nebraska. But no date!
“The idea of a night when you were supposed to have fun, or else.” — — — I’ve never felt that way about it. It always seemed perfectly acceptable to be a little melancholy on New Year’s Eve, even in a crowded hotel ballroom, among the merry noisemakers: the occasional oddball (and I have sometimes been that person) whose mood slides (with some lubrication) towards the maudlin, adds something no less essential to the completeness of the feast, than the old gent with the hourglass, and the baby in diaper and sash.
Of course melancholy comes in varieties, and if on the Eve yours is an unsociable melancholy (I’ve been that person too, sometimes), best to avoid a crowd, stay home and toast the midnight alone — or with some one (and this and that also I have done). Or crawl into bed (I’ve even done this), pull the blankets over your head, and let the sounds of gunshot, fireworks, whoopees come to you as from afar. Optional to say (I did say) Happy New Year as you roll over and try to fall asleep.
I hope, though, you’ve had years, as I have had, when you’ve root-toot-tooted in the New Year with the loudest and drunkest of them, happily, unselfconsciously, and not at all because you were supposed to. Even to have done it once is to have done it for all time. The year (I’m quoting now) — The year is a great circle, or / the year is a great mistake. (end of quote) Happy new year!
Happy Hogmanay and Slàinte Mhath!
Michigan grad here, so GO BLUE!!! (sorry physicsguy)….
I’ll stay home, drink some champagne, watch the weather (it’s mid 60s right now in OKC, but good chance of rain/sleet/ice/snow through tomorrow with the temps going down to 10). The northern part of the state is under a winter weather advisory. The first snow/ice storm of the season is always fun to watch.
If tomorrow’s nice, I’ll head out to the sailing club for some black-eye peas and cornbread. I might have to dig out the flannel face mask to wear. However, I think I’ll pass on the traditional sail. I’m sure someone will head out on the lake, though we’ll probably won’t be able to see him as a result of fog off the lake.
Happy & Healthy New Year to everyone!
No problem, Liz. Friendly rivalry. We’re headed to the beach tomorrow as it’s forecast to be sunny and upper 80s. Turning cold, by Florida standards, Monday so we have to take advantage.
Just read that Betty White has died. Aged 99, just several weeks before her 100th. Great Actress, wicked sense of humor. Go in Peace.
For some reason, “Auld Lang Syne” reminds me of “Loch Lomond” and vice versa. Puts a bit of a downer on the event.
Som friends are coming over to drink a glass of sparkling wine with us. I have no idea how long they will stay. Tonight, we had grilled ham and cheeese sanwiches and tomato soup for supper, so other than the visit, it’s about as boring as the rest of the holidays here for the last 2 years. I just wish we could get rid of the masks.
I hope all of you have a good evening and an even better New Year.
BTW, Neo, thanks for Ella. What a voice.
expat:
You’re welcome! She was indeed great.
Tonight will find me curled up with a good book and toasting the New Year with a bit of single malt scotch.
I certainly wish that 2022 be a year filled with love, joy and good health for everyone.
Yet I see no prospect that leads to thinking that 2022 will be a year filled with joy for America.
Hope for the best but prepare for the worst.
Yes to remembering Betty White with some fondness, one of the last of the Greatest Generation.
Happy New Year All!
I slept through it. Now it’s time to make loud noises around people with hangovers.
@Cornflour:
2022 would be as good a year as any to take the Red Pill 🙂
We missed our annual New Year’s Eve dinner at Morton’s The Steakhouse in downtown Portland, OR. I mean, who wants to go to Portland???
But last year they were closed because of stupid Covid. This year they’re open, so we have our 5:15PM reservation (!) and will be home by around 8 and miss all the crazy people, assuming there will BE any crazy people in the Portland metro area.
Fortunately the location of the restaurant isn’t in the downtown area(s) where so many riots ensued in the past couple of years, but I haven’t been to Portland in almost 2 years, and I live right across the river from it in Vancouver WA.
Happy New Year, everyone! ??
I will have a quiet evening and pull the plastic wrap off my new calendars before midnight. Then at midnight I will run around and change calendars.
I really have a ridiculous number of calendars.
I never was much into partying on New Year’s Eve but then I’m not much of a partier in general. Now that I’m old and divorced, it’s just another holiday alone. I’m spending the evening pumping water from a backed up drain in my basement.
I am sitting around a bonfire in the yard with my family. I feel blessed.
I have NEVER watched “the ball drop” in real time in my whole life. It seems a bit vicarious…
Perhaps Zaphod can answer this.
Does the average Chinese celebrate Western New Years? After all, the Western Calendar is not the only calendar.
Happy New Year, Neo. Yes some of my happiest New Year’s Eves were very simple such as 1973 when I went with a friend to see “American Graffiti“ at the Kings Plaza movie theater, and 1984 when I went with the same friend to Queens and we saw “Beverly Hills Cop“. I like to keep it simple but I like to get together with a few friends.
@Jon Baker:
Damn right they do! January 1-3 off.
Herewith proof in the form of some cute stuff from the State Council of the PRC:
http://english.www.gov.cn/policies/infographics/202110/25/content_WS6176c8a3c6d0df57f98e3c8f.html
Chinese New Year is a Movable Feast thanks to the Lunar Calendar and kicks off on January 31 (CNY Eve) this year. That’s more important and everyone gets a week off in China… often much more so can travel home. Less so at present thanks to Covid travel restrictions for sure.
Can always tell when the big CNY factory shutdown happens because the sky turns perfectly blue!
Gregorian Calendar New Year is *the* major festival in Japan and Thailand — older lunar calendar based festivals having fixed to this date in the modern era. In Thailand for sure, there are still a bunch of major festivals and holidays which follow the Buddhist Lunar Calendar.
Had I not gone to bed early, I would have looked for a live stream of NHK’s midnight countdown. They have this silly variety show first, but end up with live cuts to temple bells being rung all over Japan which is quite moving — it’s the deep midwinter and plenty of snow in the countryside.
Metesky wrote, “I’m spending the evening pumping water from a backed up drain in my basement.”
Been there, done that. Finally called the rooter men. Wish I’d called them sooner.
Backed up drains are a bummer.
But at least they’re not in the same league as malfunctioning toilets on motor yachts (don’t ask).
Zaphod, thanks.
Neo, commenters, and other readers, I wish you a 2022 that is better than 2021!
Happy New Year, everyone! I’m having a French wine. It’s a Grenache/Syrah/Mourvedre blend.
Reading this blog is the best way I’ve spent this eve in years.
My New Year’s entertainment is catching up on Neo and Powerline and other assorted blogs, having spent the last 3 days with family and friends.
Also, like Shirehome, we were watching Boulder County burn down last night – one in-law lost her house, and another her storage units. Will have to see how things go with them. One of our kids moved out of Lafayette last year at Christmas (just in time for Snowmageddon in Texas), so we also know that area well.
Not the best way to start one’s New Year.
Talking of things burning. A Planned Parenthood in Knoxville has just burned.
In the immortal words of one Recalcitrant Gabber (not me):
“It’s just a Clump of Bricks.”
This is what I’m doing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2Dljqi91-M
In the course of catching up, I finally listened to some music bookmarked from Posts of Neo Past (well, earlier this month).
Courtesy of Tom Grey: “Here’s another Monkees (never heard before?) – Merry Christmas in Spanish a cappella”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_NQytR1zKk&list=RDXJJL-clqdfU&index=27
I have never heard The Monkees sing “Ríu Chíu,” but I have performed it with several different choirs. It’s actually quite fun to sing, because of the different entrances of the voice parts.
The boys do a quite credible version.
Here’s the MoTab recording.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ujlsKCUhNg
Wikipedia gives the song’s history, some of the lyrics (it’s very long, as are most ancient carols), and mentions covers by The Monkees and the Kingston Trio.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%ADu_R%C3%ADu_Ch%C3%ADu
Usually I sleep through New Year’s Eve. The last time I intentionally stayed up to wait for midnight was for 2000 when I arrived home shortly after 6:00 PM, turned on the news and saw the fireworks going off on the Eiffel Tower and thought it might be worth it to stay up late to watch the celebrations from around the world.
Tonight I am up late because we have some folks in my neighborhood who think that EVERY and ANY holidays means time for setting of fireworks/firecrackers. They have been at it since 7:00 PM and are still going strong. Arrgh!
Oh well, at least I am up to have the traditional pickled herring for New Year’s at midnight; a family tradition supposedly brought over from the “old country” meant to bring good luck and good health for the new year. Oh and some real German gingerbread cookies! Found them at Aldi’s; but, no pfeffernusse. Pfeffernusse used to be very common when I was a kid; now it is very hard to find unless ordering it online.
As for the year closing – it hasn’t been a good one; especially with the last major news story being of Betty White’s passing. I always liked her in anything she did. May she rest in peace playing Password with Allen Ludden!
For 2022, just remember to walk into it quietly, everyone be good, be quiet, be courteous and respectful so that the new year treats us all well. And for Pete’s sake – don’t touch anything!
Here’s to wishing Neo and all her commenters a happy and healthy new year!
Sorry for those who have lost homes in Boulder County. At least it seems there were no lives lost. We got in touch with friends living seven miles north of the fires. They are hosting one family who’ve lost everything and another who don’t yet know, since roads are still blocked.