Dear LPG

I can find no online statistics on this, but I have a question that I think needs to be asked in preparation for tonight: - 

How are you going to ring the new year in? 

Looking at it through the decades of life might be the way to go.  

When I think of the new year during the first ten years of my life, as far as I can remember, I would find myself asleep, having tried my best to stay up. There would always be a party in progress at one family member's house or another.  

And those were the days when young children's routines did not interrupt a family gathering. So we young ones were likely to find ourselves on a parent's lap amidst all the revelry or upstairs asleep on a bed with all the other little ones with one designated person watching over us while we missed the big countdown

In the second decade, we young ones would either still be so tired that we missed the whole thing, be the one checking on the babies asleep in the bedroom upstairs with the only glass of baby sham we were allowed all year, or towards the end of the decade, we would be studying or working and partying just about as hard as we were ever going to. Did the first official New Year's Day bank holiday in 1974 and not having to go to work on January 1st make a difference in how much alcohol you consumed? 

I am guessing that sometime during those '20s and 30s' was when we found ourselves with children of our own and not attending quite so many of those family parties, with the years between 30 and 40 becoming the serious years when I know that for me, the real partying would give way to getting over Christmas and ready to get back to the old routine again. 

By the time I got to my 50s, I found myself doing shift work, where being at work was often par for the course at that pivotal moment of the new year. That can be a good thing, especially if you live alone. But by the time you get to your 60s, it can start to be just another day. Although New Year television was there to keep us company with reruns of old films, the Hogmanay celebrations, or, more recently, the firework displays were enough to keep you watching after the chimes of Big Ben. 

During the following decades, it has been my experience that if we are not careful, we miss them all, which is fine if you are happy with that, but it can be such a shame if you are not.

I wonder if, in retirement, you are one of those who goes to bed early and alone, skipping the whole thing because, unless you like to spend your New Year that way, that is such a shame.  

These days, I make a point of hearing the 12 chimes at church, but I know that many people spend it alone or sleep through it; in a bid to help LPG readers take another look at their plans, I have found a few online suggestions that it might be possible to adapt so that your New Year is slightly more unique.

NM, Bellingham.

For those whose rules are missing fundamental definitions, NM offers a few online starting blocks…

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