Chatting online with various folks and going to bed long before midnight arrives

Happy new year everybody! Whenever we are around, we have a party at our house. We live in a split level, so we corral all the children (almost all of our friends have kids) in the downstairs and set the loose. Then the adults mingle on the main floor until "midnight", which is actually 10 pm, so everyone can get their rugrats home and in bed at a reasonable hour.
If I were in the 'Burgh, I would love to go to a party at a converted flashlight factory, or even the Mattress Factory, if I were invited.
If I have my way, I'll be in bed before midnight, but who knows.

We're having a few friends over for dinner. Very casual and low-key. I'm making a beef tenderloin, roasted fingerling potatoes and broccoli with, if you must know, Tostitos spicy cheese sauce. Shut. Up. It is so good. Also baking some chocolate chip cookies. And lots of wine.

Happy New Year, bunnies! I'm doing pretty much the same as bluesapphires. I had friends over for dinner last night (Ina Garten's brisket recipe, Pioneer Woman mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts with chestnuts, plus other veggies, followed up with cheesecake), and I've been at work today, so a quiet night in chatting online and watching TV is just what I want to do.

If I did decide at the last minute to go somewhere, everywhere round here (even the pubs) are only allowing advanced-ticket admission, and every restaurant is fully-booked and charging over the odds. Even Trafalgar Square (hell on earth on NYE) is ticket only this year, reducing the number from last year's 500,000 to a more manageable 100,000. I'm sure there'll still be about half a million people in Central London anyway. I can't think of anything worse.

So, internet, TV, good food and my cat, to see in 2015.

They actually have a ball drop in my town, but I don't think I'll go. Too cold out.

Not only do the times square crowds spill up to Central Park(2 blocks away from where I live), there are also going to be protests tonight so I'm going to a movie and staying elsewhere.

Eating fondue, drinking champagne, and going to bed early. Helllllll no I ain't staying up until midnight. Not with a kid that will surely be up at 6. We'll definitely stream the Netflix fake countdown for kids before he goes to bed.

We are going out to pizza with a few other couples and then having them over to our place for dessert and cocktails and watching the ball drop on tv.
Then I am kicking everyone out early so we can rest up for our babymoon, we leave tomorrow for Morocco!!!!
I AM SO EXCITED!!

A fake countdown for kids?! That would never work here; here it's the outburst of fireworks all around your neighbourhood that signals new year.
Yinz don't light fireworks after midnight?

For those who want to fake it/see fireworks early, you can see them happening live in other time zones here

I live four blocks from the river(s) where they set off the fireworks at midnight so there's no sleeping early. Also this is my fiftieth new year's and I haven't gone to sleep early since I was five or six so I'll be up until 2am or so. Fortunately the party is about two hundred feet from home so I should be able to make it back ok.

Just polished off my second Strongbow. Surprisingly, I'm not partying anywhere this year. (Normally I travel and see my homie, but finances didn't work out that way.)

Fuck 2014.

We got back into town around 4.30, I went for a run then we all went for dinner at a Mexican restaurant. Husband is putting kiddo to bed right now (well after her bedtime) and we will chill on the couch with some booze and a movie. I picked up some Pimms (elderflower and blackberry!) so am sorted for the evening.

But when the fireworks are lit by everybody in the street, like it is here, the ruckus is undeniable. Like they're firing a machine gun outside of your door.

None of that here thank goodness. Kidlet woke me up right before midnight so I gave a mental "Happy New Year" to the world before rolling over and going back to sleep.

Fireworks in the street is more of an Independence Day thing here, never heard them on New Years.

I set up a new router to solve my intermittent connection to the Internet. That's about as exciting as it gets around here ;-)