Happy New Year to All!

Sitting down to write this post brought many fond memories back about New Year's Eve celebrations over the years.  When I was a child, my parents would often go out to a party at the Knights of Columbus, leaving us home with our grandmother to celebrate.  We loved those evenings because we had unlimited snack food and soda, but there was often a gentle tug-of-war involving the TV:  Dick Clark vs. Guy Lombardo.  I remember asking my mom if we could plan a really special blow-out party for New Year's Eve 2000.  Her reply:  You'll be 34 years old--you can do whatever you want.  When we were older, home from college or graduate school, I recall small parties with our friends who were in town, where we tried to flex our culinary muscles (e.g., champagne punch, baked brie).  As married-with-kids 34-year-olds, Glenn and I did in fact plan something special for New Year's Eve 2000.  We (and our two oldest daughters, then 5 and 2) took a few days to drive up the California coast.  We were in Big Sur right before the calendar turned to 2000 and celebrated by having a lovely dinner on the coast and watching the final sunset of the millennium over the Pacific Ocean.  We stayed in Monterey Bay that night, but the girls, tired from a full day, could not be awoken at midnight to see the fireworks, try as we might.  Other memorable celebrations have included fondue with friends, dinners out and concerts, cookies in Providence, and a ski trip in Switzerland.  A memorable non-celebration was the year that Glenn and I were up late packing for our trip to the AEA meetings, leaving the following morning.  Midnight came and went without us even noticing.     

I always like to mark the change of year in some special way--sharing a bottle of champagne, going out for a nice dinner, celebrating with a small group of friends at someone's house--but the staying-out-past-midnight part has never had much appeal to me.  I like to be in my own bed by, say, 12:10am.  But there is always a part of me that feels a little guilty and embarrassed that I am unable to enjoy the prototypical festive night out to ring in the new year.  No Times Square for me, or First Night fireworks over Boston Harbor.  Or the Grande Soiree on the Champs Elysees.  

So, again, this year, I was having a small amount of regret that we would be missing out on Paris' big party.  What I didn't fully appreciate, though, is that we would have the best seats in town to enjoy it.  We tuned into the live broadcast around 11pm and listened to some of the musicians performing and watched the clever animated movie projected onto the Arc de Triomphe.  (All of the photos here are snapshots I took of the television broadcast.)  The theme of the animation this year was sports/Olympics, of course, and we enjoyed seeing how the animation exploited and played with the shape and architectural details of the Arc.  

Then, at midnight, the fireworks and lightshow from the Arc de Triomphe started.  We could see it on TV, of course, but we realized that we also had a pretty good view from our window.  And that was not the only fireworks display we could see--we had a little trouble counting, but we certainly could see at least five other displays from our apartment!  

None of the photos I took of our view turned out--the exposures were too long for fireworks--but it was a spectacular display nonetheless.  

We toasted surviving a challenging year and we toasted to a brighter, calmer, more peaceful 2024.  And that's what we hope for all of you as well.