Thursday, January 3, 2013

New Year’s Annoyance

Hey.

Howareya.

Happy New Year.

So I kinda hate romantic holidays. I also hate it when people try to make holidays romantic. Case in point: the number of people getting engaged at Christmas. Oy. Dude, get an imagination. And, how cheap are you? Too cheap to buy an engagement ring and a Christmas present so you just lump them into one? URGH!! I have a thing about combined presents. See: Birthday + Christmas = your head chopped off. (to those of you who got engaged on Christmas – congratulations!)
Side note; I never used to hate romantic holidays – I guess I used to have such high hopes. Years of disappointment has ruined this. I hate that the little girl in me has died.

I consider New Year’s to be a romantic holiday – what with the kiss at midnight and the pretty dress and the hope for something new and the cuddling because it’s cold.
So I totally loved New Year’s. It’s my favourite. I love making resolutions and looking back at last year and all the lists (top 20 albums of the year, 10 worst fashion disasters of the year, you know). I love the fact that there is a party, but NO gift giving. I love planning what I’m going to wear to the New Year’s dance/party/whatever. I love the sparkle and the fancy. I used to plan all year what I was going to do for New Year’s.

Let’s rewind to New Year’s Eve 1996. I was so excited to share this with my soon-to-be-Darling-Husband that I took a trip to Salt Lake City just to spend New Year’s with my Darling. I was so excited to finally have my “forever” – the man I was going to spend the rest of eternity with. Yay! Finally a guaranteed kiss at midnight for the rest of evermore! I was so excited for a romantic night. I spent Christmas with my family, but saved New Year’s for my fiancé. When my dad was driving me to the Seattle airport so that I could fly down to SLC, we had a huge hassle at the border; car searched, sent in to immigration to be grilled, etc., a story for another time. I thought it was all worth it just to spend New Year’s with my Darling.

He knew I was coming to spend New Year’s with him, but he made no plans. I saw that he had New Year’s decorations in his condo, so I wrongfully assumed that New Year’s was as big a deal to him as it was to me. A tip: you do NOT ask your love/date/girlfriend/whatever what they want to do for New Year’s ON New Year’s Eve. Of course, everything was booked and there was nothing to do, so we sat in front of the TV watching New Year’s Rockin’ eve. I use the term “we” loosely. I sat on the couch watching the TV and pouting while DH slept. Worst slash Stupidest New Year’s ever. I should have stayed home and partied with my friends since I was getting married in eleven days, but I wanted to spend the most romantic night of the year with my most favourite love. Had I known that I would never again party it up on New Year’s I would have totally taken advantage of my last chance.

DH and I have never done anything on New Year’s. Not once ever. Ever never ever. NE-VER. Like, ever. We celebrated the end of the 20th century by him and his newly divorced friend watching the New Year’s fireworks around the world on CNN, and me sleeping in the next room. I was pregnant with Huey at the time and very tired. We were all worried about Y2K and the end of the world and I had to work the next day to make sure that the computers were all good to go. I woke up at midnight, came out to the living room, told the men “Happy New Year” and went back to bed. Yup. We know how to par-tay.

I have tried to plan things to do for New Year’s figuring that if I want to do something, I had better plan it. Everything I have suggested gets shot down. Too cold. Too loud. I don’t want to do that, I have to work. Every year I end up alone watching TV. We do occasionally toast with sparkling cider and kiss and say “Happy New Year”, but rarely do we both stay up and ring in the New Year together.
Here we are this year, the end of 2012. No plans. I had spent the last three days cleaning our house. (It looks great, thanks for asking!) DH had to work his usual 3-11pm. I made a nice steak dinner. When he left to go back to work he asked me if we were going to be up. I turned to him as I was folding laundry and watching New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Jenny McCarthy and Ryan Seacrest – they were remembering Dick Clark, it was pretty great – and told him probably not. I was going to finish the load I was folding, read to Davy and put him to bed and go to bed myself. I was really tuckered out from cleaning, I had my period, we never do anything for New Year’s, I’m so sick of this year, the new year is going to come whether I ring it in or not, so bah, humbug! I was in bed by 10. Huey was up playing Minecraft when DH came home at eleven. I heard them talking and stuff, but chose to remain in bed. I was so grumpy from years previous and the whole asking me the day of if I want to do anything (urgh! That makes me so MAD!), and tired that I wasn’t about to get up and be with him even though I was awake. He came up and kissed me and said Happy New Year at midnight, but I pretended I was asleep.

So for the past sixteen New Year’s one of us has been asleep at midnight. We even had a bunch of fireworks going off in our neighbourhood this year and I was too grumpy to even bother to look outside. Sad for me the most, really. I used to love this holiday so much and this year totally stunk and most of it was because of me. I have being in Time’s Square at New Year’s on my bucket list for crying out loud!

I totally could have showered and prettied up and been all ready by the time DH got home. We could have watched the ball drop and toasted and had a kiss and a snuggle, but I was just so mad that we never do anything on New Year’s that I let sixteen years of frustration build up and just went to bed. There was no yelling or fighting like there has been in years past, which is good and bad. Good: no yelling or fighting. Bad: I’ve given up. So what I was trying to say was that I could have totally had a relatively fun New Year’s this year (at least a better on than in years past), but I just didn’t.
I have decided two things:
  1. We are having an annual New Year’s party. You’re all invited. The theme is “White”.
  2. We are going to have romantic holidays this year, that it is going to be up to me, and I am going to make it happen for us: starting with our anniversary on the 11th. Wish me luck.

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