By Erica Hoffman
After the slightly dismal year this has been, celebrating holidays is more important now than ever. As human beings, we can’t just live in a carousel of misery, astonishment, and despair. So even though this New Years’ Eve will look and feel significantly different, that doesn’t mean we can’t make the most of it. There are plenty of ways to ring in the New Year 2020 style. You just have to get a little creative.
Like everything else this year, New Year’s Eve will look and feel like no other that came before it. There will still be the traditional ball drop, sans the million people crammed into Times Square, and we will watch it like we’ve done everything else this year: in front of our screens. This year it’s up to each of us to make our own safe fun.
Here are some ideas to help you make the last day of ‘the year that wasn’t’ a memorable one.
Get Dressed Up
It may sound silly at first, even if it’s just you and your parents, you and your significant other, or you and your cat or dog, or only you. Get dressed up. It certainly will make the night festive right off the bat, and (when you don’t have to do it continually) getting dressed up can be fun. Put on a nice suit or dress, get a new haircut a couple of days before, play with your makeup, do your hair. You’d be shocked at how your mood, attitude, and general outlook can change just by getting a little dolled up. You could even have a “black tie” zoom party with your friends. Just be prepared for when someone gets up to refill their drink. You may realize that it’s a party on the top and a birthday suit on the bottom, just an advanced warning!
Make a 2020 scrapbook
There’s no denying it: 2020 was a memorable year, even if we’d like to forget it entirely. It may seem crazy now to commemorate the past 12 months, but in a couple of years, or even a couple of decades, it will be fascinating to look back on this unusual time. Add a list of the shows you watched, the games you played, the events you missed, and the different zoom gatherings that took place. I would add the ever-evolving scorecard showing who won the most games of Uno, Jenga, and monopoly (we’re quite the competitive household). It’s a great way to spend the night, get creative and look back on all the memories you made. If for nothing else, later in life, it may be a helpful tool in practicing gratitude. In the future, when you are going through something that feels like it will never end, opening up your 2020 scrapbook may help more than you could begin to realize right now.
Make a Brunch
Brunch, it’s the best and most decadent meal there is. No other meal has options like ricotta pancakes, stuffed French toast, or orange cheesecake breakfast rolls, and let’s face it; you really can’t get more indulgent than that. Make brunch for dinner if you want. It’s 2020; the rules are out the window. Don’t forget the mimosas and bloody Mary’s (is it even brunch without them?), which leads to my next, and perhaps favorite unconventional New Years’ plan.
Sleep
Sleeping through midnight isn’t just for exhausted parents anymore. Permit yourself to rest. Sleep in, take a nap, wake up, move to the couch, and take another nap! There’s nothing to do and nowhere to go. And if you think about how often you say “I’m so tired” in a year, guess what? Now you can do something about it! Note that sleep will be incredibly satisfying if you decide to indulge in the brunch extravaganza mentioned above.
Start the new year with a good deed.
Clean out your closet, attic, basement, whatever you’ve kept saying you need to cleanout. Cleaning may seem like an odd way to celebrate the end of 2020, and it is. (But don’t forget, no one says you can’t clean and have a cocktail or seven at the same time). This one is more of a short term delayed gratification activity. Think of it this way, what better way to start a new year than with a clean, clutter-free space. But perhaps even better than that, the first thing on your 2021 to-do list will be to drop off your gently used items to people who need them. It’s a win-win.
Whatever you do, please be safe. Think of yourself, others, and accept your responsibility as a decent member of society. We all want 2021 to be better, but the only way that will happen is to work as the team that we need to be.
And with that, I’d like to be one of the first to wish all of my readers a Happy New Year.
Erica Hoffman was born in Atlantic City and is proud to be writing for Shore Local. She lives in South Jersey and enjoys finding and sharing the lighter side of life.
