Noon is the new Midnight.
We didn't plan this new tradition. It hit us like a ton of bricks last New Year's Eve that my husband and I were no longer the ones in charge of making the plans. It was a theme quickly taking ahold of our entire year. We are both big planners and our love language is planning family vacations and outings, but that was now taking a backseat to whatever sports season it was, and they were also preferring to do anything with their friends over anything with their parents (even if it was a trip to France). WHAT?! That switch seemed to have gotten flipped without any warning to us! Our best times were being together as a family, and even though I know it is "normal" and "healthy" and I felt the same way at their age, I wasn't prepared.
That's exactly how it went down last New Year's Eve. That reality slapped us in the unsuspecting faces that we weren't the ones making the plans anymore. Gone were the days of babysitters for a night out on the town, or inviting friends over and getting the guest rooms ready so no one had to drive. Even worse, their plans greatly impacted whatever plans we thought we were going to make. Our 14 year old told us the day before about the New Year's Eve party he and his friends wanted to go to. (Again brand new world of exciting boy/girl parties.) We realized to make that happen we needed to be available as sober drivers at any moment during the New Years Eve night. That meant we couldn't even be home watching Ryan Seacrest enjoying a bottle of champagne to ring in the new year. I hadn't spent a New Year's stone sober since I was pregnant, and before then, high school I guess!
My husband and I decided since we would likely be spending the whole New Year's Eve night playing Uber for a bunch of teenagers (which we were happy to do btw, just not expecting it) that we would have a little day date of our own to ring in the New Year. It was awesome!
We walked downtown from our house and had a really delicious lunch followed by a beer at a German pub we'd walked by a hundred times and never tried before. It was there when we were talking about how much fun our New Year's day date was that we coined the term "Noon" Year's Eve, and we are sticking with it! We want to be available to our kids for the next several years if they find themselves in a position where they need us or a ride on New Year's Eve night, so we will keep our celebration to a modest, yet fun "Noon" Year's Eve.
This photo was taken when we coined the term "Noon" Year's Eve and realized this would be our new tradition for at least the next seven years. You can tell it was spur of the moment. I don't even think I'm wearing makeup!
Comments