As you’ve probably guessed by now, I am not going to finish my Defining Days of the Decade list this decade — well, unless you’re in the “decade starts in 2011” camp (which I’m not). The write-ups have taken me longer than I anticipated, and I’m certainly not going to spend my free time on my eldest daughter’s second birthday frantically writing four long blog posts, rather than paying attention to the birthday girl. So the Top 4 (and the Honorable Mentions) will just have to wait until the opening days of 2010, and my hinted-at anniversary machinations are shot. Oh, well.
Meanwhile, as I anticipate spending a rather domestic New Year’s Eve watching TV — first the Gonzaga game, then Anderson Cooper — while sitting on the couch next to a napping wife (who has agreed I can wake her up for our traditional milk toast at midnight) while our girls sleep upstairs, I’ve been reminiscing about where I’ve been, who I’ve been with, and what I’ve been doing on each of the last ten New Year’s Eves. It’s quite a variety: from tame domesticity with family, to crazy partying amid huge crowds, to hiking up a mountain as newlyweds, to welcoming a new baby into the world. To wit:
1999-2000: After watching with rapt attention as CNN aired New Year’s celebrations from around the world throughout the day, I celebrated the turn of the millennium (or the start of the last year of the old millennium, if you’re one of those pesky purists) the same way I’d celebrated every other New Year since 1990-91: at First Night in Hartford, watching the fireworks in Bushnell Park at midnight.
2000-2001: I went with Becky to New York City for New Year’s, intending to ring in the “real millennium” (and greet the arrival of 01/01/01) by watching the ball drop in Times Square at midnight. We met up with our friend Vicki — visiting her parents’ place in New Jersey, which had a beautiful view of the World Trade Center — then headed to the Square. But Becky fell ill (possibly due to food poisoning from our dinner, or maybe from some kind of stomach bug), and a few minutes after 11:00, she nearly fainted in the snow as we walked along 7th Avenue. I helped her up and quickly ascertained that she really couldn’t stay out, so we headed back to our hotel on 10th Avenue and watched the ball drop on TV. Sort of a New Year’s FAIL, I guess, but definitely a memory.
2001-2002: Inspired by a desire to finish what I’d started the previous year, and also to show solidarity with NYC after 9/11 (and prove that I wouldn’t “let the terrorists win” by staying away from large crowds and whatnot), I returned to Times Square, this time with my parents. And this time, we made it all the way to midnight, nearly freezing our toes off in the process, despite my electrically warmed socks (which miraculously made it through the heavy security perimeter, along with my various electronics).
2002-2003: Because I had spent Christmas with Becky’s family in Hawaii, my parents and I decided to treat New Year’s Day as “our” Christmas Day, which meant that New Year’s Eve doubled as Christmas Eve. So, after attending the 6:00 PM “kiddie” fireworks at Bushnell Park, we returned home to Newington and celebrated both Christmas and the New Year by plugging in our newly bought and decorated Christmas tree at midnight. It was sort of like a grand cosmic convergence between my Christmas-lights ceremonies and New Year’s celebrations. Definitely a fun and memorable, if unusual, way to ring in 2003.
2003-2004: This was, by far, the least festive New Year’s of the decade for me, because I was sick as a dog with the flu. Becky and I spent New Year’s Eve holed up in a Washington, D.C. hotel room (we were in D.C. for a cousin’s wedding on January 3), and although we had a bottle of champagne with us, I was too sick to even think about drinking alcohol at midnight — so we instead toasted the New Year with two glasses of milk. Thus our “traditional midnight milk toast” was born.
2004-2005: This was my first-ever New Year outside of the Eastern Time Zone, as Becky and I were in Arizona with her parents, Jen and Sören, and Robbie. We spent New Year’s Eve at the Zaks’ house, watching the ball drop on TV — twice. First we watched live, and toasted the arrival of 10:00 PM in Arizona. Ted and Ginny consider this to be the “real” start of the New Year, but I insisted on staying up until local midnight, at which time we watched the ball drop again (the Phoenix TV stations re-run in at midnight, along with live local festivities), and, of course, in Becky’s and my case, shared a milk toast. Then we stepped outside and saw a bunch of fireworks shows going off throughout the Phoenix Valley, visible from the Zaks’ front porch, which was awesome, and planted the seed of our plans for the next New Year.
2005-2006: New Year’s Eve was the night after our wedding, and we celebrated in a unique way, getting together with a bunch of friends and family who were still in town, and hiking partway up Silly Mountain with a cooler full of beer (and a black-and-white portable TV) in tow. We hung out, talked, drank, watched the ball drop live at 10:00 PM, saw a smattering of fireworks throughout the Valley at that time, then hung out, talked and drank some more, before finally counting down to local midnight, at which point we were treated to a tremendous view of perhaps a dozen or more fireworks shows as far as the eye could see. Very, very cool.
2006-2007: We were back in Gold Canyon, AZ for the third straight year, but rather than hunkering down at Becky’s parents’ house, as we’d done two years earlier, Becky’s brother Casey and I prevailed upon Becky to come out with us for the Tempe Fiesta Bowl Block Party, which is supposedly one of the Top 10 biggest New Year’s parties in the country. We had a blast, and were delighted to see the place absolutely crawling with Boise State fans, who outnumbered the Oklahoma fans perhaps 5-to-1. (Who could have guessed what a treat they’d be in for the next day?) Then, just before midnight, by pure chance, we ran into my old friend Diane and her then-fiancé, now-husband Josh. At midnight, or rather 12:01 AM or so, we all watched together as the “f***ing flower” (actually a “sunburst”) finally dropped and welcomed the New Year. Possibly my greatest New Year’s celebration ever, until…
2007-2008: This was, of course, the most special and memorable New Year’s of all, as we spent it in the maternity ward at Parkwest Medical Center in Knoxville, ringing in 2008 less than 10 hours after the birth of our firstborn child, known in these bloggy parts as Loyette. At midnight, we had the hospital-room TV turned to — what else? — the ball drop in Times Square. I picked up Loyette and brought her over to Becky, lying in her hospital bed, and held our brand-new baby as we counted down to this momentous of New Years, together as a family.
2008-2009: Back in Gold Canyon for the New Year, this time with a newly one-year-old daughter (and another on the way, late first trimester at the time), we toasted 2009 at the traditional Zaks-in-Arizona hour of 10pm. Then everyone except Becky and I went to bed, but we stayed up till midnight for — you guessed it — our traditional milk toast.
So, to review: that’s one New Year in Hartford, one in Newington, one in Times Square, one in a hotel near Times Square, one in Washington, D.C., two at Becky’s parents’ house in Gold Canyon, one on the slopes of a mountain (really a small hill) in Gold Canyon, one in Tempe, and one in a maternity ward in Knoxville. And tonight, we’ll ring in 2010 in Denver.
More photos here.
Although I was a youthful 52 years old (and Joe 53) when we made our pilgrimage to Times Square, we decided that we had waited at least twenty years too long to stand on the pavement of Broadway for four hours in 20-degree weather. Also, although a tightly-packed crowd does warm up the immediate vicinity oh, maybe 10 degrees or so, the 20-degree temperature remains constant on the pavement, and that seaps up through the soles of the feet and up the entire body well before those four hours have passed (the requisite time on December 31st, 2001 to stand roughly 5 blocks from Times Square. So if the look of desperation is not obvious on our faces in the photo Brendan has posted here, it must be that he shot it at low resolution. It was Hello, 2002, Goodbye forever, Times Square. Only for you, Beany, only for you.
Love,
Mom
OXO
Heh. I think that photo was taken pretty early in the night, so that probably explains why you don’t look grumpier. 🙂
I myself, although only 20 at the time, concluded that going to Times Square at midnight on New Year’s is something that one must do once in one’s life… but not necessarily twice. 🙂
I have to say the 05/06 New Year was one of my favorite and most unique. Good times.
Agreed, that one is right up near the top of my list too. 05/06, 06/07, and 07/08 are far & away my three favorite New Years(es?) on this list, all for very different reasons. That three-year period was, like, the “golden age” of Brendan Loy New Years celebrations. 🙂