On New Year's Eve

Some traditions are intentional while others just evolve over time until it's natural that they occur when they do.  Our New Year's Eve celebrations are the latter; it only occurred to me this year that we have one at all.

Early on in our relationship, I had some major medical school exams in the first week of January and was studying hard.  Instead of heading out on the town or getting drunk with friends, we stayed home in my student house and ate dinner together.  I know, we were rock and roll back then.

This year, I'm heavily pregnant, we have 2 small children and we had just got back from our time away.  We needed to get the children back into their normal routines and organising a babysitter seemed like more trouble than it was worth.  Instead, we had our usual quiet evening at home.  We bought ready-prepared food from Mark & Spencers (real food that you just have to chuck in the oven for the prescribed time? Yes please!) and settled down with the Homeland season 3 finale.  I had a 'mocktail' and Andy had a glass of wine.  We were in bed by 11pm and fast asleep for the New Year.  Which was fortunate given that the children were awake, as usual, at 7am.

Life changes when you have children.  Your priorities shift and you have to streamline activities to those that really do bring value to your life.  And for me, a quiet evening with good food, good tv and a good man is the perfect way to end the year.