What are you doing New Year’s Eve?

Every year we face a decision about New Year’s Eve…  what to do, what to do?  Let me state right up   front that I am past the point in my life where I want to go out, get drunk, and kiss some stranger at the stroke of midnight.  Been there, done that.  If that is your thing, go for it!  (And let me know how it went so I can re-live my misspent youth)

These days I settle for something a little more sedate.  Some years we have gone out to a restaurant for some multi-course dinner designed to take you right up to midnight, but dessert and a champagne toast seems a little tame, even for me.  Some years we have gone to friend’s parties where the food is awesome and the atmosphere much more lively, especially if they set off their own fireworks purchased the previous July on the local First Nation Reservations.  I am a sucker for fireworks!  Living in Seattle we have the luxury of the fantastic fireworks display off the Space Needle at midnight, and it is a sight I hate to miss.  Unfortunately, some years we can only sort-of see it, because of the clouds and rain.  Kind of like trying to watch the July 4^th fireworks in San Francisco…

The best New Year’s fireworks for me hands-down were in Sydney, off the Harbour Bridge.   I got to see them the year we spent the holidays with my Aussie in-laws.  From a boat, in the harbor.  Awesome.

 I have been doing some research and there are other big New Year’s fireworks shows in Paris, Hong Kong, Rio, London and I think it is a worthy goal to plan to see them all.  Maybe not in the same year, though.