Ringing In The New Year With Rod

You've probably been asked this a million times in the last few days, but, what are you doing for New Years Eve?  Do you have plans with friends and/or family?  Will you be going out?  Are you hosting a party?  In keeping with a tradition we started a few years ago, we'll be staying home.  I've been looking forward to it for months.

Our festivities begins at 8:00 a.m. when our friend Rod gets here.  You know Rod, don't you?

Okay, Rod Serling doesn't really come over.  That would be impossible, as well as creepy, since he died in 1975, but the SyFy channel runs an annual Twilight Zone marathon beginning at 8:00 a.m. on New Years Eve and ending at 5:00 a.m. on January 2.   We'll be watching quite a bit of it.

It will be a pretty unstructured day/weekend around here.  In addition to watching our favorite Twilight Zone episodes there will be plenty of talking and laughing.  We may play cards or Scrabble.  There will also be plenty to eat.  A variety of finger foods will be available for impromptu snacking, and they will most likely include crackers and cheese (Dubliner Irish cheese is a new fave, Willoughby House Cheese Spread is an older fave), tortilla chips with salsa, pretzels, nuts and a few fresh fruits and vegetables.  There will also be a variety of beverages which will most certainly include wine and San Juan Tea for the adults.  For dinner, the current plan is crab legs and shrimp.

I know you're probably thinking that our plans sound pretty tame, but that's just fine by us.  Before we started our tradition with Rod, we had some pretty bad New Years Eves.  The worst would be 1999, the big Y2K that everyone was so worried about.  Our daughter was just shy of two months old and still in the NICU.  We spent all night at her bedside, terrified that, if the predictions were true, the power and computer systems at the hospital would shut down at midnight.  They didn't, but it still made for a long night.

Another year, we were invited to a get together that included both adults and children.  We were told there would be activities for the kids (there weren't).  We brought a bottle of wine (and then found that none of the other adults at the party drank alcohol).  The hostess became increasingly upset that the guests were still in her home past her children's bedtime (and was vocal about it).  It remains the only New Years Eve party we ever attended where we were home by 9:30.

There were also the miscellaneous New Years Eve parties over the years where guests drank too much and became obnoxious, belligerent or sick (like not making it to the bathroom to throw up kind of sick).  Add to that last year, when I had the swine flu or a few years before that when both of the kids and I had the stomach flu. 

So if you're in the area, stop by.  You're welcome to enjoy a tame New Years Eve with the Willoughbys.  And Rod, of course.

Have you entered my giveaway, yet?  Even if you have, you can enter once per day, so click the link and enter again!  You could win a $50 Novica shopping spree!

Willoughby