new year's eve can be loud
(post #3 about this particular day of the year)
Oh hello, it’s the last day of 2023.
Most of the time I like a quiet New Year’s Eve. Unless, of course, I’m traveling somewhere and there are some fun opportunities to see how people in other countries celebrate the arrival of a new year.
On the other hand, I’m not wild about travel chaos on NYE (or any other time for that matter).
At the end of 2018, the four of us were in Hawaii and planned to ring in the new year more or less quietly in our Airbnb in Kailua, which is a lovely town on the east coast of Oahu. We figured there would be some municipal festivities near the beach or some other central location but that things would quiet-ish in the residential neighborhood where we were staying. Probably we’d hear some celebrating at midnight but that would be it, right?
Right?
Wrong.
People started setting off fireworks all over town before sunset and the festivities went well past midnight into the wee hours of the 1st. Hours and hours of sporadic bursts of explosives and bangs and crackles and pops.
The accompanying soundtrack to this was dogs howling and barking all night long. I don’t mind barking dogs, but I do mind hearing that they’re upset and unhappy and there’s nothing I can do about it.
I have to assume that babies (and their parents) were equally unhappy that evening.
It was a long, long night.
Here in our hometown of Virginia — where we’ll be having a low-key NYE this year — there will be fireworks at midnight, which I think is normal for a lot of places. And that probably means some other random pops and bangs around town before that. By and large, things will calm down right after the big bangs at midnight.
No matter what, it’s likely I’ll be wearing pajamas by early evening and might possibly take a cat nap shortly after that to ensure that I make it to midnight to kiss my loved ones, then head off to bed. I will definitely have ear plugs firmly in place before I drift off. Because I am a party animal that way.
What are your plans for tonight?
Beautiful dinner at a traditional Portuguese restaurant, followed by a quiet wait for the New Year with my small family. Fireworks to the right and left of us, not long, but quite pretty. It's our first NYE in Portugal so the fireworks carried a bit of emotion. Lots of texts back to the US to family were exchanged while they awaited the arrival five hours later.
A rousing game of backgammon, take out from Domo Kitchen, put on some dance music from the 70s and 80s... Will we make it to ring in the New Year, that’s a “maybe”