Welkcome to a New Year Ladies and Gentlemen!

When I was a kid my brother and I always spent New Year's eve at Nana and Pa's house. It was without fail because my mother sure as hell was not going to stay home. She'd spend DAYS finding the right outfit and deciding how to fix her hair...man, it was a great production...and she always wanted to make sure her New Year's eve was perfect...



Got to LOVE those 70's clothes, right?

Anyway, my brother and I would be deposited at my grandparents house early in the day(if we weren't there already) and our own New Year's eve celebration would be begin.
My Nana always made sure we had plenty to do. She'd have a puzzle set up on the card table for us to work on and we'd have a stack of games to play. A lot of our toys were already at her house, so we had those to play with, but my grandparents were determined that we have a special night too. Because the Christmas tree was still set up, they'd wrap small gifts for us and put those under the Christmas tree so we'd have New Year's gifts to open after dinner. It was small stuff like paper dolls and matchbox cars and yoyo's or a jump rope, but it was such a treat for us. We really did feel like we were having our own celebration.

I loved paper dolls and my two favorite sets were these ones...





There was always the issue of having more women than men so even Jughead got in on the action...Melody was normally his woman.(And in case you're curious, I always put Betty with Archie. She was, after all, the nice girl and deserved him.)

We would bake cookies or make candy in the afternoon and then I would help Nana make our dinner. We'd have a nice pork roast with all the trimmings and for dessert there would be rice pudding. It's a tradition that I still carry on today with my own family.
After dinner, we'd clean everything up. My brother and Pa would sit in their chairs in the living room and shoot Nana with those sucker gun darts as she tried to wash dishes.Then they'd laugh and laugh about it. I can still hear Pa laughing in my mind...



Those little suckers stung if they hit you in just the right spot. I always figured that Nana would grab one and try to shove it up Pa's ass, but she never did...and yes, my brother had this exact set...(Starksky was the hottie In My Opinion...just saying...)

I'm not sure why, but it seems as though Lawrence Welk was on every New Year's eve. Or maybe it's just because the local television station aired it, but I can remember it being on and my Nana and Pa dancing to it in the living room. My brother and I would laugh and fidget on the couch, but they didn't seem to notice us.
I guess that's the difference between them and my mom. An episode of Lawrence Welk on a black and white television was enough for them....



Almost as good as a Swedish Polka, isn't it?

I'm not sure what Mr.Man and I are doing tonight. While I enjoy going out, he is not so keen on it. And to be honest,as long as he is holding me tight, I can be happy watching Jeremiah Johnson for the 900th time or watching how they make tires on the Discovery channel OR play a game of Trivial Pursuit where he will kick my ass soundly and accuse me of getting all the "easy" questions in the event that I win.

I will make a nice dinner for my family and rice pudding, and then we can play games, (although Little Beatle is really the only one who likes to play anymore). We've had a couple of friends ask us to do something with them, but I'm not sure if we will or not...

Whatever it is that you find yourself doing this evening, before you retire and wake to a New Year, or as you watch the Ball drop in Times Square...I leave you with this thought and the hope that 2009 will bring you all peace, prosperity and good health...

"We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day. ~Edith Lovejoy Pierce"

Happy New Year everyone!!!!