I love New Year’s Eve as much as the next guy, but just because everyone is having fun doesn’t mean it’s the best holiday going.
In fact, I’ve come up with 7 things surrounding New Year that are the absolute WORST.
1. The WORST holiday to have kids
If Christmas is the holiday that gains the most value when you have kids, New Year’s Eve is the one that loses the most. Forget about whether or not you like to drink on New Year’s, figuring out what you’re going to do with tired, miserable children for 3 hours is tougher than walking through Times Square on December 31st without getting cropdusted.
Do we keep the kids up? Do we find a place for them to sleep? Will there be other kids at the party? Is our child going to get his forehead split open by the rambunctious Johnson children again this year?
If you’ve got more than 1 kid under the age of 6, just rent a movie and stay home.
2. The WORST party to get ready for.
Every other night of the year you’re ready to settle in on the couch once 6:30 rolls around. But tonight, you’re heading out the door with food, beverages, pajamas, pack-n-play, and board games.
The kids didn’t take great naps like you wanted them to, and they’re already fussy. Your wife has been rushing around the kitchen like a madwoman trying to get the brie ready in half the time it’s supposed to take because when she told you to “get the biggest wheel of brie they have” she didn’t intend you to come home with a block of cheese bigger than a birthday cake (yes, that happened to us this year).
You’re ready to fall asleep in the car ride out of sheer exhaustion. At least you’ll get to bed early tonight…or not.
3. The WORST time to tell your kids they can stay up all night
If your kids manage to stay up until midnight, you have my permission to taunt them without mercy once they start falling asleep. Remember folks, these are the same kids who whine about going to bed, who plead with you to let them stay up all night. Well kid, you got your chance and now you’re petering out on the sofa.
This year my kids (ages 8 and 7) made it until midnight, but around 12:45 they morphed into zombies. Other than my first date in high school, I’ve never seen people more ready to go home in my life.
I told the kids they were allowed to stay up all night if they wanted to. Had they had the energy, they probably would have cried at the suggestion.
4.The WORST Holiday Celebration
Why do we watch a ball drop again? Is this the best we can do? Hey everyone, gather round to watch a slow-motion reenactment of gravity!
Here’s a few suggestions of things that would be more fun than a ball dropping as we hit midnight:
- a rocket launch
- a fireworks show
- my neighbor playing frisbee with his dog
- the implosion of an old stadium
- icicles forming on the tip of Carson Daly’s nose
- a ball being thrown up into the air
- the world’s largest pinata being smashed over Times Square
- Ryan Seacrest being kicked in the gut by a burro
5. The WORST display of PDA since junior high
One minute you’re counting backwards from 10 to 0, the next minute everyone in the room is sucking face. What is this, a junior high dance? I half expected to see a couple slow-dancing in the corner to “One More Try”; the guy with two handfuls of cheeks like he’s keeping her butt from leaking out of her pants pockets.
Even on TV the couples in Times Square are smooching. At least with Christmas you have to be under the mistletoe to make out. On New Year’s Eve it’s a free for all. From 12:00 midnight to 12:15am, you can do what you like in the street and get away with it. But try some light petting at 12:30 and everyone will yell at you to get a room.
6. The WORST Time to be on the road
It’s the scariest ride of the year. You should see me driving home from a New Year’s Eve Party. I am so alert, they need to create a new word to define how alert I am (don’t worry, Google is working on it). I assume every other driver on the road is completely wasted and is about to careen into my car. I assume even the deer hiding in the forests are sloshed on Jagermeister, and in their drunken stupor they’ve decided to play Frogger in front of my car.
Do not mess with my senses on that drive home. I’m like a Ninja plugged into the Matrix. I’m like George Costanza spotting dimes across the room without his glasses on. I once was so alert driving home from a New Year’s party that I sensed an injured fox laying in a bed of leaves ten feet off the road at 45 MPH. Be afraid, be very afraid.
7.The WORST way to start a clean slate
Hey everyone, it’s a New Year! Things will be different this year, things will be better! So what better way to start off our clean slate than staying up too late, eating way too much, and having too much to drink!
Nothing says “best year ever” like rolling out of bed on January 1 with a bloated gut, a throbbing headache, and a bad case of the runs.
What About You: What do you love/hate about New Year’s Eve parties?