I’ve always dreamed of celebrating New Year’s Eve in Vienna, listening to the Philharmonic playing Strauss waltzes. Possibly waltzing around myself. Of course, between the pandemic and the difficulty of getting tickets, that’s not looking so good for this year, but a person can dream. (You can, however, listen to the program on WQXR.) I asked my fellow Miss Demeanors what their fantasy New Year’s would look like, and this is what they said.
Tracee: I’m not a big New Year’s Eve party person but I did spend a magical New Year’s Eve in St Moritz and would repeat it! Plenty of snow on the ground and everyone gathered around the lake to watch fireworks. Very lovely and fun and peaceful all at the same time!
Alexia: I fantasize about going to bed early and waking up January 1 to find that 2022 is less of a 💩 show than 2020 and 2021.
Connie: Susan, your fantasy came true for my cousin’s father-in-law, a cardiologist. After his wife of many years died, he met a fascinating woman, the widow of a diplomat, who’d spent most of her life traveling the world. The first Christmas they were married, they spent NYE dancing at a ball in Vienna. I thought that was the most romantic thing I’d ever heard of.
As for us, we’ve always spent NYE hosting a dinner party for close friends. I make the main course, and they bring everything else. After dinner, we look back on the previous year and then look ahead to the year ahead, sharing our joys and our concerns. We haven’t done this in two years because of Covid.
This year we are spending NYE alone at our snowy cottage in northern Wisconsin. Woke up this morning to a fresh 8” of snow. We have dinner reservations that night at Little Bohemia Lodge, site of the shoot-out between the Feds and the Dillinger gang in the 1930s. The place (truly) has hardly changed—even the bullet holes are still there!
Michele: A nice dinner at home with my husband, a glass of Prosecco, and then tucking into my bed with my book, usually around 9:00. We pretend it’s midnight and pronounce Happy New Year! Actually, it’s almost identical to how we celebrate Christmas Eve. I’m a very boring person at night but you’d have trouble keeping up with me at dawn. Happy, Healthy New Year to my fellow Miss Demeanors and our wonderful followers!
Emilya: Well, New Year’s eve was always a very important day in my family (because of the whole Christmas moved to New Year’s thing), so the only year I didn’t go out and do SOMETHING was last year, for obvious world-in-a-dumpster-fire reasons. My entire life NYE was either a large family party, a night out with friends, a concert, a club, a pub, etc., etc.
There was the NYE when my husband almost ran me over in a police van whilst he was rushing to a 911 call and I was moseying over to a friend’s party. He later showed up at the party in uniform and scared everyone. I told him I was almost killed by a police van and he said when/where, and then we both said, oh…
I saw lots of very excellent bands play very excellent shows, and spent one night in a surprisingly quiet emergency room with a friend who fell down a set of metal stairs at a club and broke his head open.
This year… who knows. My fantasy is that we’re living in normal-times again and I can be around friends and not worry.
Sharon: Jack and I are not big party people (well, Jack is but he hangs out with me anyway.) We usually plan a fabulous dinner for two. One year we did lobsters we caught ourselves while diving in New England, in December. Other years we’ve made shrimp scampi or roast chicken. Or sometimes we have a simple dinner but an amazing dessert. Those are my favorites. We spend a quiet night at home together and usually go to bed early. Boring, I know, but it makes us happy.
Happy New Year from the Miss Demeanors!