We celebrated our New Year's eve as we have for the last nine years. This was mine and Tad's tenth together as lovers and partners. Here is what we do:
We stay in. No parties, no bars, no babysitters or crowded restaurants. No driving or free busses. Just the four of us, at home.
We all dressed up at about 3:00 and I poured us some sparkling white grape juice. Tad and Coen spiked up their hair with gel. I wore a dress that I got at a vintage shop, and Lucy opted to be baby new year complete with no clothes, a diaper and a top hat. I made an appetizer of baked brie, havarti and muenster cheese (everyone's favorites represented) with crackers of all sorts. We toasted, Tad and I each telling our kids something that they accomplished this year and what we love about them and each other. At 4:00 we counted down the New Year in Estonia and then at 5:00 we counted down the New Year in the Czech Republic. All four of us went to the front door and yelled Happy New Year and blew our horns for all of the neighborhood to hear.
The kids get a special treat for dinner--Kid Cuisines!! These are kids frozen meals ($2.00 apiece at Woodmans) that our kids LOVE. After their dinners, they both had a bubble bath and off to bed.
After Coen and Lucy were all tucked in, Tad and I turned off most of the lights in our house, save the Christmas tree and several candles, moved the dining room table into the living room and had a date.
Dinner was steak that was donated to us by my good friend Laura, who had been given several shrink-wrapped frozen meats and shared them with us, asparagus, texas toast and baked beans. Delicious.
Over dinner, Tad and I (as we do every year) read aloud two letters that we had written each other. We have been writing letters to each other since 2000, when I was in the Peace Corps. Each year we choose two letters. It is amazing to watch the letters move us from close friends, to the best of friends, to madly in love. This year's letters were the last letter we'd written each other before we fell in love and the first notes we'd written each other after.
Then we talked for hours about our love and what we share and our children and our lives and the past year. At 12:00 we danced to two songs--the same two every year--and we kissed in 2011.
Before bed we had to go upstairs, as we promised Coen (his idea) to move two items of furniture in his room so that when he woke up, he'd know it was a new year.
It was a wonderful night and one of my favorites of the year.
Those of you readers, who are with the person you fell in love with, try this:
One day a year, any day... pick a night to sit together and revisit the way you felt, what happened, the story of when you fell in love. Tell each other what you loved about each other then and what you love about each other now. This checking in that we do, keeps things feeling alive and well year round. I am telling you, this experience carries me through the entire year, and even when I am frustrated, angry or annoyed with Tad, I can go back to the way it felt to kiss him for the first time, and I can feel gratitude and joy that I am with someone who makes my life a better experience and makes me a better person.
Happy New Year everyone!!!
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