Resolving Not to Resolve Anything

I kind of hate New Year’s Eve. I’m not sure what it’s like in other parts of the world, but in LA, when you’re still young and without kids, it means paying $100-$150 for the privilege of elbowing strangers out of the way for a watery vodka soda or the last square of the Subway party sub posing as the “hors d’oeuvres” promised in your package price.

Or, you can have a party.

It’s a stressful proposition; people are reluctant to commit, holding RSVP’s tight to their chest until they can confirm where the best watery vodka sodas and party subs will be, and who they’ll be elbowing out of the way for them. You send an Evite, reluctantly, and imagine yourself blowing a noise maker into dead silence at midnight, surrounded by empty party hats.

A friend of mine, Kate – a new mom, recently commented on my blog that she was living vicariously through me and couldn’t wait to see what I did for New Year’s. Kind of funny, given the options above. I’d always thought having kids would make a great excuse not to have to pretend you have something awesome going on for NYE.

But I wasn’t surprised to receive it: parents have glorified this holiday as an emblem of their footloose and childfree youth. It’s why they overpay teenagers to babysit, buy sparkly dresses they’ll only wear once and join the masses at the bars. Maybe they have a blast on their night of freedom. Or maybe it reminds them they made the right decision to exit the party scene. Maybe it functions like the dating disaster stories from your still-single friends where you walk away, breathe a sigh of relief, and say thank God I’m not out there anymore.

Well, Kate – we had a party. A smallish one – fifteen people – but we had fun. We drank enough champagne to kill a Chandon vineyard row. We wrote passive-aggressive resolution suggestions for one another. We survived another year of not breaking our excessively delicate glass punch bowl, despite overuse. We ended the night playing beer pong in the garage in our formal wear, and, as an NYE miracle, the Hawthorne PD did not show up for once.

We also played a game where we anonymously penned our own resolutions and had everyone guess the authors. I’d love to say that I resolved to have this whole baby issue figured out in 2012. But who are we kidding? I just stuck with my usual (make enough money to develop a significant off-shore account that Drew knows nothing about) and knocked back another glass of champagne. Gotta claim the childfree New Year’s Day hangover while I still can.

Parents who are reading this – did you go out? Was it worth it, am I just a New Year’s Eve hater?