New Year's Eve has always struck me as kind of a weird holiday. It's one that always has ridiculous expectations attached to it - you feel like you should be doing something particularly awesome, or exciting, or unusual, even though you'd probably rather just be doing the same thing you usually do. It kind of goes along with Valentine's Day in that respect - the expectations are always more than you can live up to unless your life is far more exciting than mine.

I have had a much better time on New Year's ever since I decided that I didn't care if my evening consisted of much of the same as the rest of the year. We usually go to a party, and since there are often still out of towners around it's guaranteed to be marginally more exciting than our average parties, and that's really all that matters. There is sometimes drinking, though less than there used to be. There is always snacking. There are often games, more and more so as more of us get into the nerdy board game thing. And there is gossip, and laughter, and kids running amuk, and generally just a good time. We burn our regrets, which is always good for the pyromaniacs among us, and things are not so exciting that they are particularly worthy of an entire journal entry.

But they are fun, and familiar, and easy. We briefly flirted with the notion of dressing up and going out to an elaborate New Year's party, but we decided this was much less work. It's cheaper, too - no tickets to buy, no outfits to find, no parking to wrestle with. Just a few dozen of my closest friends, a drink or two, and a nerdy board game or three. Sounds like a party to me. Does that make me old? Probably. But I'm starting to think that's not such a bad thing.