Tonight We're Gonna Party Like It's...

Mood: Lazy (really lazy. I have so much that I need to be doing...writing, wrapping Christmas gifts, addressing Christmas cards...but here I sit, blogging away.)

What I'm Watching: TMZ (We all know how much I loves me some celebrity scandal!)

Current Word Count: 11,356 (my muse? not kicking so much ass today)

2010? Doesn't have quite the same ring to it does it? Anyway, as often happens to the hubs and I, we get all wrapped up (see what I did with the punning right there?) in the planning and celebration of Christmas and New Year's Eve gets relegated to the back burner until it's too late.

The hubs and I have spent 9 New Year's Eve's together and I don't mind saying that the first 8 of those were a pure slice of hell. They would go something like this:

Me: Hubs? NYE is in two days, what do you want to do?
Hubs: I dunno.
Me: Me either, but don't you think we should do something?
Hubs: Yep.

Repeat this coversation several times over the next two days until we find ourselves staring down the barrel of New Year's Eve with absolutely nothing to do. Then? The meltdown would start.

Me: Hubs? What about checking out the celebration downtown (ice sculptures, horse drawn carriage rides, lame entertainment but with cool fireworks at midnight.)
Hubs: Meh. It's cold outside. (Uh, yeah dumbass...we live in Illinois. But, he has a point, it's definitely not worth freezing our collective asses off to see some lame ass entertainment)
Me: So, what do you want to do?
Hubs: I dunno (so original, no?)
Me:  Well it's NYE, we're young, we should be doing something fun.
Hubs: Yeah, but what?
Me: Wanna go bowling?

Insert frustrating 15 minute trek to the bowling alley in sub zero temps only to discover that it's closed for a private party! So we trek back home, cranky and disappointed that even our lame ass plans have fallen through.

Me: Are you driving back home?
Hubs: Where else are we going to go?
Me: Why don't we just go downtown? (no I don't really want to but I also don't want to spend NYE watching tv while the hubs hangs out on the computer all night)
Hubs: *fixes me with the death stare*
Me: Fine. What do you want to do?
Hubs: There's nothing to do. We're not bar people (totally true..not the we don't drink but generally hanging out in the cramped, dirty bars in our town is just not our thing) and there's nothing but drunks out on the road.

It's at this point that the situation really starts to disintegrate. Suddenly we morph from a loving couple who rarely fights into a couple of snarky, snappy bitchy people who are annoyed by the mere exitstence of one another.

I snap at him because he's being difficult about getting out of the house (even if it is just to do some lame ass town thing). He snaps at me because he wants to do something fun but there's nothing fun to do. Eventually, we hear the distant booming thunder of fireworks being set off and we pause the argument long enough to make our way to the livingroom window to watch the fireworks being set off over the river in town. We wish each other a terse "Happy New Year" and retire to our respective corners...him on the computer, me on the sofa with the remote.

As much fun as that tradition probably sounds to you, last year we decided to do something different. We recognized that we needed to head off the evening of merriment before it started. To that end, we made reservations at a local hotel that was hosting a NYE party. There was a DJ (music and dancing...yay!), a fancy cocktail bar (the hubs could drink but without being in a bar atmosphere) and the endless entertainment provided by watching drunk people dancing, partying and just generally being, well, drunk. And? At the end of the night the only thing we had to worry about operating under the influence was the hotel elevator. Win/Win/Win all the way around! For the first time we didn't spend the evening weighing our chances of getting away with seriously maiming one another.

So, in the interest of cultivating our new tradition (you know, the one that doesn't involve bodily injuries and trips to the ER and/or the local jail), I just made our reservations at a local hotel where we will once again enjoy the music, the drinks and generally laugh at the drunken masses!