That Time of Year Again

We had some friends over for New Year's Eve. We try to do this every year. It began about five years ago when a close friend and I were talking about our plans and neither of us wanted to leave our children for the night to go out and celebrate. Everyone we knew that had parties planned them just for adults, which I suppose is quite typical. But I didn't want to leave my children with a sitter and I really didn't want to be away from them. So, we hatched a plan. Invite a few close friends to gather with our children. Everyone would bring party foods. We'd throw all the food out on the dining room table, play games including the children, shoot off fireworks during the evening, lay any children down that needed to go to bed, and have fun together.

After the first couple of years, a pattern developed. Folks would arrive around 8 p.m., we'd get into a roaring game of some kind (Scattergories or something that didn't involve a board but could be played with lots of people), when we got hungry, we'd take a break and hit the food. Around 10 or 10:30, we set off the fireworks and at 11:45, we'd move into the Den to watch the ball drop in New York City on T.V. We'd kiss our spouses and children to ring in the New Year, hug each other, then begin cleaning up. By 12:10, the house would be clean, everyone would be gone, and I'd be settling the children down to bed. Lots of fun for all, but not an extremely late night.

Over the years, the guest list has expanded a little. But it's still a relatively small group of close friends and family (my parents always come and one of my friend's mother always attends for a while) and I don't feel like the house has to be spotless.

This year, however, the house was so dirty and I was so unpeaceful about it that we worked really hard to get it clean before the party. Usually, I clean the house real well before Christmas, but we left for West Virginia on the 21st and were gone over the days I would normally be cleaning. It needed a good scrub and some organization, which it DID. The children worked side by side with me and Don and I was very pleased with the outcome.

My niece will be coming over next week to work with me to begin the initial steps of minimizing - getting rid of STUFF. All of us have FAR too much junk and it's time to pare down, significantly. We're in a good place now to begin the task. Things are neat and orderly so we can get down to the work of minimizing without needing to organize first.

Maybe we should have a party once a month or so.

Worth thinking about!