Notes to self

I hate New Year. There, I said it. I’m no scrooge or anything, I love Christmas, I love parties and I love dressing up and socialising, but New Year is the worst. Allow me to explain why.

First of all, I find it hugely anticlimactic. Christmas Eve has a buzz about it — you know the next day you’ll be with loved ones, eating great food, having a great time. But with New Year, there’s nothing to look forward to but giving up all your vices and living clean in January. Let’s face it, we’re all skint, hungry, dreading going back to work and bored in January because December was so good we have to rein ourselves in. I suppose you could argue that New Year was a great excuse to enjoy your final night of fun for a while, or that it’s a celebration of the possibilities next year holds, but for me it’s just a reminder that the best time of the year is ending. January 1 is bleak indeed.

Secondly, venues love New Year because it means they can charge you a fortune just to get through the door. If you want to go anywhere decent, you have to plan in advance (so, no spontaneous fun on New Year) and you have to dig deep to cover the cost of just the door entry. I hate paying to walk in a door.

Thirdly, everyone in the world is out, and they’re all standing on my foot in their spike heels. You can’t get good service, you have to queue for the toilet (and therefore have to pre-plan these trips) and people get riled up quicker because the pressure to have a good time is so high. Which brings me to another point: forced fun. Just because it’s December 31, we have to make it memorable. It’s the same with weddings; it’s just too much hope and expectation resting on one day. Sometimes nights out turn out to be disappointing, but when you’ve paid a lot of money, you’ve got a lot invested in this being a really great night. It puts too much pressure on the occasion and it makes some people tense. I’m one of those people and it really ruins everyone’s night.

Also, I’m not much of a clubber but, for New Year, nobody wants to sit and have a quiet night. Everyone wants to go and see DJ Elecktro or some other scarily named DJ who I’m sure will be spinning songs I don’t know or ruining the ones I do. I don’t like house music or even know what most “club” terms mean. At New Year I have to pay a small fortune to listen to some electro-dub-house MC or something. I’d rather bop along to Rihanna in my bedroom.

But I feel as though the main reason I hate New Year is because it totally steals my thunder. My birthday is on December 30 (I’ll be 29 this year) and everyone is either away or has no money or they’re tired. I’d love to have a big lavish birthday but every time I suggest it, people tell me “why don’t we say tomorrow is your birthday celebration?” I want to scream. How am I supposed to compete with the biggest night out of the year? I can’t. Is it so much to ask to have all the attention on me for just one day of the year? Is it? IS IT? Hmmpphh.

There’s one other reason why I hate New Year. I am the only person in the world who doesn’t know the words to Auld Lang Syne. Every year I make a mental note to learn the words before the next year so I don’t have to face the shame of mouthing the wrong words or grinning manically to avoid singing.

There. Rant over. After all that I do hope you have a very Happy New Year. See you in 2013.