Happy New Year, loyal alannoah.com readers!

Sorry for my little “sabbatical” from new posts for a while, but with the Holidays things got a bit crazy, and I wanted my Nick’s Marathon post to stay at the top of the page for a while anyway. (Have you helped the cause yet? Now is a great time!)

The last few weeks were full of fun times, with a Cookie Swap party, Christmas Day in Manhattan, and an end-of-year road trip to Massachusetts. Our New Year’s Eve was fun, but for the first time in many years, I didn’t stay up until midnight.

It got me thinking about New Year’s Eve’s past, and how what I did that night reflected what was going on in my life at that time. Here’s a rundown of them as best as I can remember (the year stated is the new year):
1997 – Party at Aaron’s house. As far as I recall this was the first big social gathering with friends I ever attended on NYE. And I got a kiss at midnight!
1998 – Another party at Aaron’s, except instead of having people beyond our normal social circle, it was just us nerds.
1999 – NYE in Times Square. A huge mistake that I wouldn’t recommend to anyone, ever. It’s freezing, and there are no bathrooms anywhere. Ugh.
2000 – The party of the Millennium! This was the party at Aaron’s grandma’s house that spawned a host of stories (and one terrible/amazing joke) that will live on forever.
2001 – This year we were all finally 21, so we could finally go out to a real venue. So we headed to Nick’s favorite place: Jillian’s.
2002 – For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to go on a booze cruise around the city. It might have been more fun if the entire state of New Jersey wasn’t on the boat with us.
2003 – My first NYE party, held at Hurley’s. Good times were had, fights were fought, and someone fell down three flights of stairs.
2004 – An encore party at Hurley’s, with us taking over the whole bar (mostly) instead of just the top floor.
2005 – My final open bar NYE bash, this time located at Dewey’s Flatiron. Nothing against Hurley’s as a venue, but it was just too damn close to Times Square.
2006 – Back at Aaron’s – This time we rang in the New Year at his and Bonnie’s east side apartment. It was fun, but I definitely recall a lot of warm drinks that night.
2007 – I’m drawing a blank on this year – can anyone out there help me with this one?
UPDATE: Courtney reminded me – we went to the Heather and Steve’s this year!
UPDATE AGAIN: Steve corrected me, I had 2007 and 2008 switched. 2007 was the Queens get together at Esther and Rafal’s place.
2008 – We stayed in Queens for a get together at Esther and Rafal’s. This was the year of Heather and Steve’s party. Sorry for the mix-up!
2009 – A small, intimate dinner with a handful of couples at Courtney B. and Eddie’s place.
2010 – A pregnant Courtney and I stayed home and watched Gone with the Wind. The movie was just long enough to carry us to stay awake at midnight.
2011 – After several long days, and with a long drive ahead of me on January 1st, I decide to call it a night at 10:30pm. I just don’t have any motivation to stay up until midnight when I know that Eli will be up at 6am if we’re lucky. (We weren’t.)

So there you have it – my journey from dork to party king to boring old father, told through the eyes of New Year’s Eve.