A Quick End-of-Year Grab Bag Style Thought

(Because let’s face it, the odds of me posting a proper grab bag on New Year’s Day are vanishingly small.)

People keep asking if I have any plans for New Year’s Eve, and while I can understand that kind of small-talk conversational gambit coming from a stranger or a co-worker who doesn’t know me very well, it strikes me as a bit odd coming from anyone who knows anything whatsoever about my happy home life. I have a child aged two and a pregnant wife. Two years old is a little too young, in my opinion, for a child to attend even a family-friendly houseparty where the parents mingle upstairs while kids hang out in the basement with a designated overseer (ok, that came out sounding way creepier than I meant it). I like the concept, really, but I think it works best when the children in question are at least five or so. Having ruled out that scenario, then, and taking as a given that having hosted Christmas there’s no way we’d be remotely interested in or even able to host our own New Year’s Eve party, it follows that the only way my wife and I could do anything would be to get a babysitter. And I haven’t been a parent that long but is it even possible to get a babysitter on New Year’s Eve for less than a luxury car payment or so? And on top of all those somethings being logistically precluded, I mention yet again that my wife is nearly six months pregnant, a state of being which generally overflows with grace but with regards to parties can be boiled down as follows:

1. Can’t drink.
2. Needs a lot of sleep.

So. We will be staying in tomorrow evening, possibly treating ourselves to one last really horrifyingly unhealthy take-out meal before seriously rezoning our bodies as temples nourished by whole grains and leafy green vegetables as of January 1, and the lion’s share of the excitement will come from deciding if we should watch Dick Clark in the den on the couch or just go ahead and fire up the bedroom tv so that if anyone falls asleep before midnight we’re already tucked in.