I am writing this post while listening to Aaron Neville's newest CD, "Bring it on home...the soul classics," for the first time. It was a Christmas present. My only complaint is I'm not totally convinced by the underlying orchestrations. Why electric piano?
New Year's Eve
When I was very young my only real memory of New Year's Eve parties were the neighbourhood parties with all the kids and parents of everyone I knew. These were great fun, filled with great food and a lot of shuffle board playing and trying to sneak a drink from the adult punch bowl! My friend Greg was the expert snagger of out of bounds punch. I think all he had to do was flash that innocent smile of his and no adult would ever accuse him of being up to no good. My favorit.JPG)
e food by far were the strawberry blintzes that Mrs. Glassman used to make. The rule was kids in the basement, adults upstairs. It was the one rule that even us kids approved of!
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e food by far were the strawberry blintzes that Mrs. Glassman used to make. The rule was kids in the basement, adults upstairs. It was the one rule that even us kids approved of!One of my all time favorite New Year's Eve parties was when I was in grade 8. No block party that year and my best friend and I spent it at my house with my parents. Probably not considered the cool thing to do, but it was fun. We had a fondue and then we sat around the piano while I played and my father and my friend sang songs from the Big Band book. My father has an awesome gospel sounding singing voice which sadly, he did not pass down to any of his kids! Well, it's possible that my brother has a good voice but he's always trying to imitate his hero, Bob Dylan, so it's kind of hard to tell. He plays a wicked harmonica though! Afterwards we watched a midnight showing of, "Play Misty For Me" with Clint Eastwood. My friend and I were totally freaked out by it. The suspense was almost unbearable. My father and I walked my friend home with the snow softly falling. I remember that walk as being one of the most peaceful times ever.
What are some of your favorite memories of New Year's Eve? Are any of you into the big shebang type party? I love the idea of it just not the actual reality of it.
Whatever your preference, here's hoping you ring in the New Year in exactly the way you wish whether it be all dressed up fancy or sound asleep long before the stroke of midnight.
Update on the Aaron Neville CD: a little goes a long way! Hmm, I wonder who might like this in their next year's stocking? I want to smash that freaking electric piano!!
11 comments:
"Play Misty for me" stars Clint Eastwood and Jessica Walters!
I love the idea of a big neighbourhood party with all the kids. When we still lived in London, we used to get together our friends who also had girls near Eva's age. One family or the other would pull their kid's wagon down the street to the other's house, loaded up with beer and snacks (always including a can of smoked oysters) and games (always including crokinole).
As the kids were little, we would have midnight at 8:00 and then we'd all be home by 10. It was the best time ever.
Now we eat crab legs and stay home, usually. Never been one for the fancy parties.
What are you planning this year?
Ha, I think that was the rule of thumb back then...all our neighbourhood parties were "adults upstairs, kids downstairs" too.
And the Y2K New Years memory is now quite hilarious...Linds and I, in Safeway trying to buy every bloody flashlight/battery in the place. Anxiety. Fear. Then, nothing. Kind of a let down?! That one will always be a doozie.
Anonymous, you are right. Thanks.
Barbara, why I'm crashing your place for crab legs of course! Supposedly, I am headed to a party with four bands from the 70's. Helix, Harlequin, Headpins and Prism. I have never heard of any of them but I'm going with a large group of very fun friends so in any case it will be a lot of fun. Hopefully, there will be lots of dancing. I love to dance even though I don't know any moves but that has yet to stop me!
Deb, what I remember about Y2K is seeing all the fantastic fireworks from around world and then it came our time. I was with a group of friends and we made the trek with 20 thousand other Victorians to see our fantastic fireworks, all five of them! They were so few and so bad that the entire crowd was mocking them.
Gotta remember Donna Mills in Play Misty. Loved her.
I was older. Got beer for the upstairs parties (in my world the adults did the downstairs thing). We hauled it up the side of the house with ropes. Good memories. We were crazy but had fun. Happy New Years.
Busterp, I like the image of pulling up the beer with a rope system. I think some of the parties from when we were young were definitely the best.
That brought back so many memories from every stage in life...
This year I am going to a comedy extravaganza at Massey Hall with Greantea and E. Both wonderful people I met online and in real life because of The Hour.
Cheers to the New Year and what adventures it will bring.
A comedy festival. Ringing in the new year with lots of laughter sounds like a good start to the year. Hope you guys have a great time.
OH Headpins have a female lead singer named Darby Mills, who has a KICKASS voice! (at least did in the 80s) I hope you have lots of fun. I'm going to be sitting here in my PJs watching countdowns on tv and listening to music! I do like to make plans with friends some New Years. My favorite NYs was when I was about 22 and out with a load of girlfriends. We went to a bar where one of our boyfriends's bands was playing. We were so hyper and basically took over the place with our antics. It was so great. Those were the days :) I remember my parents parties, and how I would wander out early the morning after to inspect the wreckage of the night before. I vaguely remember draining some near empty glasses YUCK lol!
I wish I was doing what you are doing this New Year's Eve. I love spending it alone, but I find I can only do that so often because it's not something a lot of my friends understand. I remember one year I baked a cornish hen had some nice wine and spent the night listening to music. Part of the time I played along with my flute and the rest of the night I painted. It was awesome ringing in the new year doing something I love. It kind of made me feel like that year was going to be a good one.
Tomorrow should be fun though because I have a really good friend coming to town and his enthusiasm is contagious. He gets in tonight and I told him tomorrow is his day and we'll do whatever he wants. No doubt that means wandering around town buying crazy things like a fancy hat. Don't know why but when I'm with him I seem to go home with a hat!
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