new year- do you stay up?

I hve never been able to stay up until midnight although we have been to a few good parties over the years. I was diagnosed with PDlast New Years Eve so I am even less keen to stay up this year. My medication makes it more difficult to stay awake so a cup of cocoa is more likely than a glass of champagne!

Now I live in retirement housing I see in the New Year with the old folks. I'm 68 and that's "old folks" relative to me. We settle in for serious drinking about 9 pm and it has happened that one of the "senior members" has needed assistance to stagger along the corridor at the end of the evening.

For me, New year is 1st Nov. When I sit in my garden if possible and thank the goddess for the year I have had and ask her blessing for what lies ahead.

On the national new year, I would love to be making loads of noise with neighbours, doing the conga round the roundabout, or dancing on a table in a nightclub.........but is will probably be just me in the garden again........wondering where the years went.

My Aberdonian parents always shared NYE with the couple from our old house and from about the age of 7, I was always woken about 11.45 for a glass of sweet sherry and the White Heather Club Hogmanay TV programme. My DH and I spent our first NYE together with his family in their local for their annual fancy dress party and since then we went to MIL's severely disabled sister and we had a family celebration. After her death, it became low-key - MIL can't be bothered, so now we open a bottle of fizzy wine, maybe watch Jules Holland, but not really that important!

We usually go to a residential hotel for a two-three night stay. Dinners, dancing, hikes and a local landmark visit or a panto thrown in. But my fave was a Hogmannay in Aberdeen about 10 years ago. Have had to miss going far in the last few years because of DH's BIL's mum is 96 and very poorly now.

This year we are going to DS and DIL's to have early eats with DGD and then watch the city's fireworks display from their upstairs windows where it's nice and warm and you can't hear the booms as loud. Looking forward to that to be honest!

No, sorry!

Yes, we see friends at differing houses for a meal, mucho drinks, and see the chimes in, usually go to bed about 12.45.The next morning we wish we hadn't!

Oh dear. Sorry everyone but haven't stayed up for a few years now . Just go to bed as per usual. We're not a couple that has lots of friends and live quite a few miles away from family. I think we must be boring.

Stay up and watch jools holland show, we enjoy that I do a New Years buffet too. Some of our neighbours usually let of fireworks so we watch them from the living room window.

friends and i have a tradition of spending new year's eve at one house one year and moving on to another's house the following year.
unfortunately, there are only two of us left now but we still carry on the tradition.
this year it's my turn and my friend will come over for a lovely dinner [cooked in the main by my daughter] and we'll sit until after midnight chatting and enjoying ourselves. really looking forward to it.
we watch the tele and usually record the fireworks in london although we can watch them while recording and watch again later to enjoy them all over again.

We go out for dinner with very good friends to a restaurant we go to during the year. I like to mark the passing of the year but I hate the enforced, ersatz jollity of a full blown NYE party.

Now we visit friends in Cornwall, after years of doing nothing special at New Year we have a fabulous time with a host of new friends, this year will be no different. With a long walk on New Years day to recover.

their children

When I was young the neighbours and mum n dad would stand on their doorsteps listening to the ships in the estuary sounding their hooters and shout Happy New Year to each other. I still live close enough to hear this but they don't do it anymore. When our children were young friends and there children would come round. There would be five children crashed out in one bedroowhilsone the adults played trivial persuit, which is hillarious when accompanied by [wine
Our ritual now is to watch Jules Holland, have a few nibbles and crack open a bottle of fizz at midnight then fall into bed soon afler.
Our family have always cooked a roast lunch on N Y day we use the leftover Christmas crackers and and toast the New Year

We do stay up have a glass and a kiss at midnight then go to bed. But if OH wants to watch Jules Holland he's on his own!

We used to stay up when I was a child as there was always a party and then the dockyard lights would be switched up to the sky and then the ships in harbour would all sound their foghorns and we would go out into the street to welcome in the new year with our neighbours.

Now I no longer live in my home town, I have a party at mine but just for my daughters and their families and any stray friends who are home alone. We eat party food and then the little ones head upstairs to play and we adults play card games ( all from my childhood) . The stakes are matchmakers and there has been known to be some cheating!!

Then we watch the countdown on TV and sing Auld Lang Syne as Big Ben chimes before everyone going to bed.

Love it.

We used to spend New Year's Eve with a couple of dear friends, at either their house or ours - it became a ritual that we all loved. If we were at our house, depending on the weather, we would stroll across to the park with a bottle of fizz, and join a whole lot of other revellers clutching their bottles of fizz to watch the fireworks going off right across the city. It was very jolly. Then, sadly, he died and now his wife no longer wants to celebrate New Year, which is understandable. To be honest, I find it harder and harder to stay up these days anyway, although DH likes to raise a glass at midnight. New Year's Day we always host a family lunch.

When we were much younger we would join the entire family at a New Year party nights in various hotels around the city, this was great fun and the little ones were allowed to join us. However, one year we waited 2+ hours for a taxi and then decided to 'knock it on the head'.
After that ('cos it was my decision!). It fell to me to entertain everyone at Hogmanay....bad move!

Nowadays, it's just me, DH, DB, SiL, and my lovely next door neighbours...much more manageable and all tucked up in bed by 2am.

We're going out in a group of 10 to a dinner dance. They are having the same band as last year (Objects trouve) who were excellent. A group of us have being doing this at various venues for a few years now.

Where we lived when I was a child, an elderly Scotsman who lived in our road would come out and play the bagpipes at midnight, shipping on the river would sound their foghorns and the neighbours used to 'first foot' for one another.
I think it's all been a bit of an anti climax for me since then, so nowadays, if I get half a chance I'm tucked up in bed with DH well before midnight.
New Year's day though, is great, a really long walk before lunch, come snow, hail, rain, wind, we wrap up and get outside!

No we don't stay up we prefer to celebrate New Years Day with a lovely meal and a bottle of wine- I'm wiped out by 10 most nights.

Never - I have tried, but fall asleep!

We can't go out on News Year's Eve because the dog is terrified of fireworks. So we stay in and I am off up to bed as soon after midnight as possible. If I lived alone I would not even stay up but seems a bit miserable to leave my husband on his own to see in the New Year.

We tend to stay up watching the tv and go to bed shortly after New Year has been declared. We did get tickets to go the the Edinburgh shindig one year ... the year it was cancelled by the weather!

umpty years ago, my son was born at 11pm on New Years Eve. The next decades left me too exhausted after the parties etc to stay up. So I sort of got out of the habit :-)