New Year’s Eve went well! I was successful in avoiding last year’s issue of discovering I was doing all the work while everyone else had a nice relaxed time. It meant I had to keep delegating/instructing, because no one leapt in to help unasked, so it was better than it could have been but not as good as it could be.
For dinner we had homemade bread (a dear friend gave us a jar of the ingredients plus a recipe for Christmas, and Paul baked it), with homemade jam (a dear friend gave us a jar for Christmas) and homemade apple butter (Paul’s sister gave us a jar for Christmas), which made me think this could be a fun friend-group Christmas gift idea: each person buy one thing that would work well for New Year’s Eve dinner a week later. We also had: cheese and crackers; grapes and blueberries and watermelon (the grapes are tradition, the blueberries and watermelon passed the “What looks good in the produce section today?” test); spinach dip as another option to go with the homemade bread (I like this jarred kind); potato chips and French onion dip (Paul re-learned that he doesn’t like the jarred kind and needs to make the kind where you mix the powder with the sour cream; he made a mental note for next year, but I’ll make a written note here). I had the kids help me put everything out on the table, and we ate while watching one of the Christmas movies we didn’t get around to watching this year.
Then I had the kids help clear everything away, and we had a little break before starting the second stage, which is Party Snacks and Staying Up Late. I had Paul make the first round of oven snacks, because he is the one who MOST loves mozzarella sticks. While he did that, I had the kids bring out the other snacks: Pringles, Doritos, M&Ms, chocolate-covered pretzels, several kinds of odd popcorn (Oreos, Butterfinger, Snickers) found at the grocery store, fudge-covered mint Oreos, fudge-covered Nutter Butters, savory pretzel twists, peanut-butter-filled pretzels. It seemed to me that the kids did not Absolutely Demolish these snacks the way they have in previous years; it could be that they’re getting older and less thrilled by such snacks; or maybe they have not yet learned, as I have, to go light on the first course in order to save room for the second.
I made pizza rolls next, and never got around to making the egg rolls: I asked everyone, and no one felt strongly about having them, and I didn’t feel strongly about having them, so we skipped them; I’ll make them as part of dinner another night. Paul went to bed, and the kids were sort of lounging lethargically as if no one could think of anything to do and maybe everyone was feeling like New Year’s Eve was not as fun as it used to be; so I thought about what I would like to do, and then asked if everyone would like to watch one of the Christmas movies I’d meant to watch on my own this year but hadn’t gotten around to (The Holiday, with Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz), and everyone said yes, and we did that, and it was fun.
By the time the movie was over, it was time for the last half hour of the countdown on TV. I’ve thought of the Dick Clark New Year’s Rockin’ Eve as The Standard, but the last few years it’s been disappointing and odd (it feels to me as if Ryan Seacrest wanted this job very badly and then discovered he doesn’t like it but now he feels stuck with it; and his co-hosts are often yelly and unfunny and trying very hard to be Fun!! and Cool!!), so next year I think we’ll try something else, or we’ll at least channel-flip to see what else is available.
My resolution last year was to buy more fun clothing. I was thinking along the lines of all the fun t-shirts available in the kids department, with a picture of a llama or a big flower or whatever, and how I wished those were available for adults as well. Through a combination of Christmas, birthday, and gin-inspired impulse ordering, I succeeded admirably in this task. It is unfortunate that most of these ended up being from Amazon, since I am trying to decrease Amazon purchases; but Amazon is the place where I can find these shirts and have them fit me, as opposed to having size choices of “unisex” (i.e., men’s fit, which does not look nice on me) or else “women’s” (i.e., babydoll/juniors fit, order two to three sizes up and STILL too tight and too short) as on many other fun t-shirt sites. For size comparison, I order a XL Tall in t-shirts from Old Navy, and I order a 2XL in the Amazon t-shirts (I can also wear the XL, but it’s more fitted than I want for wearing to work). Some of the acquisitions:
Thermal long-sleeved shirts (sold as pajama shirts) to wear under t-shirts, for cute patterned arms. (Link to individual shirts; link to two-packs.) These are getting pretty thoroughly sold out in most patterns/sizes, so I will try to remind us all of this idea next year when they are freshly in stock again.
Scandinavian birds t-shirt. (This one is a different brand than the other shirts. I ordered an XL, I think based on reading reviews, and that was the right fit.)
Rocket Dog shoes in Daisy and Rainbow.
My resolutions for 2022:
• Continue to buy fun clothes. That was a good idea and led to a lot of happy clothing.
• This one is hard to express, but I have noticed a LOT of areas where I have accidentally gotten in the habit of deferring to Paul’s way of doing things, even when it negatively affects me AND there is no reason for it except that it’s what he prefers—while HE does not make the same adjustments/deferrals toward me, and instead lives his life centering his own preferences and not feeling weird about that. Just for one single example: he prefers to go to bed about an hour before I do, AND he prefers us to go to bed at the same time. And for some reason, this has resulted in me following BOTH his preferences, and so I lie awake night after night listening to him snore until I can finally fall asleep. But…he does not lie in bed awake listening to ME snore when he wakes up EARLIER than I do, so that we can get OUT of bed at the same time! Nor does he seem to feel any inclination/obligation to stay up until the time I would like to go to bed. So why don’t I go to bed when I would like to go to bed, instead of when HE would prefer me to go to bed? It is a mystery, and one I intend to work on noticing and adjusting in the coming year, in many many areas of life.
• Re-write recipe cards, especially for important recipes. I noticed at Thanksgiving that one reason I had trouble turning over some of the work to others is that there are a lot of things I Just Know about the recipes, but have not actually written on the actual cards. (I’ve done the small, easy-to-write corrections; this is more about the complicated or extensive kind of corrections, or the lengthier descriptions of HOW to do a particular step I Just Know how to do.) The cards need to be re-written—not only so other people can help, but also so the recipes won’t be wrong/mystifying when I’m no longer around to make them. I don’t know if I can make myself do this, but putting it as a resolution may help.