Cheers!
The excitement and coziness and mess of Christmas is wonderful, but I think we’re all ready for life to return to normal tomorrow. Our New Year’s Eves are typically pretty low-key, but we enjoy them. We had fondue for dinner, which is fun. And I especially enjoyed using the vintage fondue set that was my parents. It blew my mind a bit to think that I was quite probably using the same forks and plates I’d used as a child on top of the very same dining room table and tablecloth (yes, I have my parents old table and I just happened to be using one of my mom’s old tablecloths that I remember quite well from childhood.) How could you not love the colored ends of the skewers?
The kids didn’t actually love the cheese very much as we made an authentic one, but they did love afterward when we all played a new game Paul bought for us called Dicecapades.
They got to stay up late for them, and then afterwards Paul and I watched Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. Who wouldn’t want to ring in the new year with Harold & Kumar? Funny story-we missed seeing the ball drop because as we realized it was 11:59 we paused the movie, switched over to regular tv, and…couldn’t find the remote control to change the channel and were stuck on PBS. When we finally found it and switched to live tv on a network the ball had already dropped, but it still seemed to be midnight.
And how could I forget that we began the day with an elaborately staged Times Square for a guinea pig photo? The ball has dropped and now these little baby guinea pigs are left tottering amongst the confetti and debris.
As for today, the first of the year, I always like to start the year doing something outside. Today we opted for a walk at Duke Farms. There were not a lot of people there, but everyone who was gave a cheerful, “Happy New Year!” We walked to the Orchid Range, which was very reminiscent of the greenhouse in Frosty the Snowman, as it was a warm, steamy garden oasis in a cold wintery setting. It really was quite wonderful to see the vibrantly colored orchids.
And here’s our first goofy family photo of the year. Can you see Paul?
We used to enjoy fondue as a family when I was a kid! I fondly remember arguing over who got which color on the end of their fondue fork. (I’m sure my folks remember the arguing with slightly less fondness.) The guinea pig NYE is awesome!
We argued over the colors, too!