New Year's Past ...

Note: This post is reprinted almost verbatim from a note I posted a couple of years ago on my personal Facebook page. I guess you could say I was a blogger long before I had a proper blog to use as a forum.

I am on the record as not being a huge fan of New Year’s Eve celebrations. Too much hype and expectation. Too many amateurs and check points on the road. Bloated prices and disappointing food.

NYE 2012 Stowe, VT

Ours are usually very low-key affairs and for the past 34 years typically spent with family at a ski resort somewhere watching an early evening torchlight parade on the mountain followed by fireworks. It was not unusual for me to then fall asleep on the couch after a delicious dinner watching The Thin Man on TV well before we switched over to the ball drop in Times Square at midnight.

But before I blog about this year's celebration, I will stroll down memory lane and recall my most memorable New Year’s Eve celebrations:

1.      (late 60’s) Growing up in Lyndhurst, when my parents went out to parties, my brother Bob, my sister Cheryl and I would create a diorama of a New Year’s Eve Party on my mother’s dressing table using all our Barbies and GI Joes etc. as revelers. We would crudely record a tape of Guy Lombardo music off of the TV, Guy’s countdown to midnight, add our own cries of “Happy New Year!,” and leave a note with instructions for my parents to play the tape when they came home.

2.      (maybe 1969) New Year’s Eve at my childhood babysitter Kathy Lonziak’s house after I babysat for her kids. The Lonziaks came home early from their party to shoot off rifles into the woods at midnight (they lived in the woods in rural Sussex County, NJ). This would not fly in Manhattan.

3.      (maybe 1970) My first New Year’s Eve party in Johnny Rizzo’s basement in Lyndhurst.  (My parents were upstairs with the Rizzos and Mustardos having their own NYE party.) It was my first "grown-up" NYE party, so of course it was the best!

Annual NYE beer at the Brewski Pub in VT 2010

4.      (1971-1977) The Florida years - a complete blur. I think it is probably better that way.

5.      (1978) Times Square, NY with Carla, her sister Ann and my sister Cheryl. We left our purses and wallets at home. We each carried only  an ID, one subway token to get back to Carla’s apartment in Brooklyn and a bottle of champagne. Nothing else in case we got pick-pocketed. I remember it was freezing! After the ball dropped, we went to a series of bars and parties around Manhattan until daylight loomed and I saw Carla sliding down the wall she was leaning against while talking to some guy in front of her. Time to go back to Brooklyn! The next day was my most memorable hangover! Everyone should do this at least once. My advice is to do it when you're young and comfort is not an issue. And oh yeah, you cannot bring Champagne anymore.

6.      (1979) Vince’s first big New Year’s Eve party at his house on Cedar Lake in Denville. Tons of friends spilled out of the house onto the lawn down to the lake where the house was situated. There was a bonfire going all night by the lake. It is actually a miracle no one was thrown into the frigid lake. Vince and I were secretly engaged! The next morning, there were people asleep everywhere -  in bathtubs, on couches, on the floor! No party - New Year's Eve or not, before or since - has ever been as good.
 

NYE 2012 Smugglers' Notch, VT

7.      (1981) Sailing aboard the Brigantine S/V Polynesia and then moored off St. Maarten at the end of a week long Windjammer cruise of the Leeward Islands. We had been in St. Barts the day before where we requisitioned a case of vintage Dom Perignon champagne. We danced barefoot to reggae music on the boat all night and we watched the fireworks display over the island at midnight from on board the ship.

8.      (1984) Bressanone, Italy with Vince and my sister Cheryl at the end of a three week Christmas vacation with my family through Greece and Italy, in the ballroom at the magnificent Hotel Elephant. We skied all day in Cortina and waltzed all night to a full orchestra! There was an elegant seven course Capodanno dinner including lentils for good luck, fireworks from the terrace at midnight, the Prosecco flowed and we crawled upstairs to our room in the wee hours.

NYE 2012 Smugglers' Notch, VT

9.      (1985) home with newborn Alex. Watched Dick Clark's Rockin' NYE on TV and toasted with some champagne. He slept through the night and so did we!

10.      (1986) Sam Kinison and Buster Poindexter at the Ritz Ballroom in NY with Marilyn and Nick. I was pregnant with my son Nick and couldn’t drink but David Johansen made it a party anyway!

11.  (Practically every year since 1985) Smugglers’ Notch, VT, the drill is pretty much the same every year: ski all day, have a celebratory brew at the local pub, watch the torchlight parade down the mountain followed by a fireworks display. We ate dinner out a few years – like Miguel’s in Stowe or the Trapp Family Lodge – but Vince is a much better cook so we mostly just ate in the condo in front of a nice fire with a nice bottle of wine and had a much better time.

Millennium NYE 1999 Verbier, Switzerland

 12.  (1999) Gstaad and Verbier Switzerland. It was the millennium! Skied all day in Gstaad, had cocktails at Gstaad’s Palace Hotel with the Zimmermann’s (where they were staying but we were not), declined an invitation to the very formal New Year’s Eve party with the Zimmermann’s at the Palace Hotel Ballroom (no kids allowed!) and instead ushered in the new millennium with Réveillon oysters and some vintage Champagne at the wild street party in Verbier with Alex and Nick. We didn't even change out of our ski clothes. To quote a Frenchman we told later about our millennium celebration, "Ah, Verbier rocks!" From a Frenchman, that's an endorsement! When we got back to our ski condo, we stayed up all night and watched the new millennium dawn all over the world on CNN.

13.  (2006 & 2007) Breckenridge, CO with my sister's family. We skied all day, watched Breck’s torchlight parade and fireworks on the mountain from my sister's second floor porch and then the boys shot off firecrackers on the deck of Cheryl and Richard’s house with Jill and Patrick. I guess ski resorts on New Year’s Eve are pretty much all the same. I love that!!!






14.  (2011) Michael Feinstein and Kelli O’Hara at Feinstein's supper club in the Regency Hotel on Park Ave. 








I wore vintage black velvet Lanvin and Vince wore his tux. It was festive and low-key at the same time and as close to The Thin Man as I will ever get!

We watched the ball drop on a screen behind the stage, sang "Auld Lang Syne" with Michael and Kelli on stage and kissed each other and strangers at midnight!!! Happy New Year!!!

NYE 2012 Harrison Grille, Stowe, VT

15. Last year (2012). It would be our last New Year's in the US for quite a while - maybe forever - so we savored it. And luckily the snow gods gave us an awesome farewell! The snow was incredible, one of the best Christmas weeks we have ever had in Vermont. Ever. We skied all day at Stowe, had a delicious dinner at the Harrison Grille, dessert at the Trapp Family Lodge, drove back to Smugglers' just in time for the bonfire, torchlight parade and fireworks.

16. (2013) to be written ...