New Year’s Eve Traditions

Can you believe that 2017 is coming to an end very?  I can’t! Where did the year go?  It literally feels like yesterday that I was making my 2017 list and here it is the end of the year.  New Year’s Eve is a great time to look back and reflect on the year and also look ahead to the next year.  Over the year’s I’ve developed a new set of New Year’s Eve traditions that are some of my favorite.

I used to dread New Year’s Eve. It would take me weeks of searching to find the perfect outfit only to get overly excited for what was usually the most overrated night of the year.  Wow, that sounds like a downer!  Don’t get me wrong, I had some great New Year’s Eve nights out with my friends. We would all get decked out and head to a hotel party complete with an over the top countdown at midnight.  While I cherish those memories, I’m perfectly happy with how I now spend my New Year’s Eve.

It started when I was 29 or 30 years old, and would rather stay in for New Year’s Eve than go out and hit the town.  If I was surrounded by my friends, it didn’t matter where I was as long as they were with me.  We would take turns hosting each other and as the years went on they eventually had kids and eventually spent the holiday with their little families.  And that left me alone. Don’t worry, it’s not as sad as it sounds,  as there was always champagne at midnight 🙂  I learned to enjoy the holiday in a different way. I’d have dinner with my parents and grandparents and it gave me the opportunity to enjoy time with them and focus on what was important to me as well as recharge myself for the New Year.  

The time honored tradition of a fancy dinner on New Year’s Eve stuck with me.  Now, Mike and I go out to a nice meal and recap the year and look forward to the next.  We always choose a restaurant  within walking distance of our home since getting a taxi on New Year’s Eve is a hard task.  Yes I said taxi. I may be the only person in the city still taking taxis.  I prefer them over an Uber; it’s one of my unique qualities.  

But back to dinner. We take the time to share our personal Top 10 Favorite Moments of the Year.  Mike actually came up with this idea and of course I jumped all over it, because I love a good list!  We share our lists throughout dinner and usually end up laughing about them.  It’s pretty entertaining to see what each other come up with because sometimes our lists don’t match.  We also require the list to be very specific.  For example we can’t say our #1 moment was our trip to Paris. It has to be specific, like “on Our trip to Paris when we drank champagne at the top of the Eiffel tower.”

We don’t stop with recapping the past year. Looking forward to the upcoming new year is also part of our New Year’s Eve tradition.  We are a very goal-focused couple, and it’s one of the things that we immediately had in common when we started dating.  Being the list lover that I am, I’ve been making a New Year’s List for about 10 years before I met Mike and he had been doing the same thing.  It’s actually a cute story.  Mike and I started dating in the fall of 2012 and we didn’t spend New Year’s Eve together that year.  We did go out right before, though, and shared our 2013 list with each other. Our lists both included a goal to officially close our Match.com accounts…and we accomplished that goal the following year 🙂 

We typically focus on a maximum of five goals each, and write them down. Throughout the year we revisit our goals about twice a month.  I’ll admit I don’t always accomplish my goals for the year, but writing them down allows me to reflect on each goal and why I didn’t reach it.  New goals pop up throughout the year and focus changes, but that is natural.  Later Ever After was a new goal, that wasn’t even on my radar at the beginning of 2017.   It just goes to show that you should always be pushing yourself and growing.

And a New Year’s Eve tradition that everyone should end the night with is having a glass of champagne.  Some years we stay out and enjoy a glass of champagne and sometimes we enjoy that champagne on the couch.  No matter what, champagne at midnight is a must!

So what does your Top Ten of 2017 list look like and what are you focused on for 2018?  I’d love to hear about them, comment below.