So Hey! It’s New Year’s Eve!

This is not going to be a year-in-review-thingamy, because I don’t do that.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about over-analyzing everything I do. The seventh day of Christmas just doesn’t feel like a natural time to me to do it. I have a few New Year’s rituals, which I honour, value and observe, but because I am Difficult, I do them to the beat of my own drum and sprinkle them throughout the year.

The First Sunday in Advent is the beginning of a new Church Year, and that suits me just fine for cold-weather contemplation and preparation for new life. And I just did that a month ago, so what would be the point of doing it again now?

My own birthday also resonates for me in a New-Year-y kind of way. Maybe I’m self-centred, but it always seems more personally significant when I’m getting my very own new number than when everybody’s getting one. I like to be special. My birthday is near the beginning of Spring, so that feels like a good time for pondering my progress along my personal path.

And for I’m-Sick-of-Summer starting fresh and celebrating, Cheesefairy and I invented our very own holiday which just can’t be beat.

I do celebrate the New Year, I just don’t get all that fired up about it. When I used to go to parties, I went to New Year’s Parties, some good and some bad. And I kissed some frogs and some princes after counting down to zero. Mostly, though, the biggest New Thing of the New Year always seems to be remember to put a new number on the rent cheque.

This evening’s exciting plan is to play games, watch movies and eat cheese in an attempt to stay awake long enough to drink some cheap bubbles, and I’m looking forward to it as a pleasant way to spend some time.

I really only have two wishes for 2007 as a collection of days.

The first is to not move. I’d like to stay here long enough to get all the way unpacked.

The second is to celebrate August Eve with Cheesefairy, even if we have to do it over iChat. That is a tradition that must lapse no longer.

Of course, if this seems to you like a good time for reflection and renewal, I wish you happiness in that project. If you want to party like it’s 1999, I wish you someone kind and caring to bring you coffee and Sunny-D tomorrow morning.

And I wish that you and I and everybody find many opportunities to smiyo smiyo smiyo.

The lovely Jessica has tagged me to do this meme again. That’s okay by me. Something must be new in the past month and a half. Let’s see.

1. You don’t know that I spent Christmas doing a creepy impersonation of the Michael Jackson of my youth, with my left hand in a latex glove. I have two things to say about that. First, if you remove a pan from a 425 degree oven, and then put it next to a pan that looks just like it, don’t mix them up and grab the wrong one. It hurts worse than childbirth. Second, if you disregard my first piece of advice, don’t sit around for two hours having dinner and tucking your children into bed. Just go to the hospital. They will give you something called Flamazine, and you want this. Almost as good as it feels for the pain to finally end after the goo is applied - waving your hand around and saying, “Flamazine!” makes you feel a bit like Harry Potter.

2. You don’t know that we went to my Mum and Terry’s for Christmas and had a fantabulous time. Not the least fantabulous part was that the entire journey to and from took as long as it used to just to get from their house to the airport.

3. You don’t know that Mum and Terry are coming to stay with us for New Year’s, and we might actually go out for the evening. If Lilah wants to scream at her grandparents all evening, they’ll still love her.

4. You don’t know that my script for Homeward Bound was in my mailbox when I got home on Tuesday, and I am so so so so so excited to start rehearsals.

5. You don’t know how much I loved my kids loving Christmas, because there’s no way I can explain it. I am a wordy little weirdo, but some things just don’t fit into words. I could try writing ten thousand words about the joy in the face of a child and yadda yadda blah.

Or I could cheat, and show you ten pictures.

You do know that I sometimes like to take the easy way out.

6. You may not know that I have not yet had my Christmas cards printed, much less mailed, but that information my help you understand why you have not yet received one. It’s only the fifth day of Christmas. I still have a week to get that done, right?

My friend Pomodoro had a baby girl last night!

She endured something ridiculous like 50 hours of labour, and that was only the most recent step on a long hard road to motherhood.

But what a light on the longest night of the year. Congratulations to and thankful prayers on behalf of the very tired family are being sent by all those who love them.

Perhaps they will name her Solstice.

Alternately, It’s-about-fucking-time has a rather nice ring to it.