Happy New Year

Much like my Christmas column where I looked back at Christmas past, as the New Year draws closer, I am – once again – looking back to my past for a fond memory of celebrating the new year with my parents.

When I was a little girl, my parents and I would travel a few miles outside of my hometown to the house of a couple and their family who were very close friends of my parents. This couple was part of my parent’s close-knit group of friends from church; and every New Year’s Eve they would host a party to ring in the New Year.

As the grown-ups would talk and celebrate throughout the house, those of us kids – and there were quite a lot of us – would be in the back “play room” watching TV and playing board games. We got to have pop (or as they call it here in California “soda”) and candy, eating far more sugar than we should have. We got to “pig out” on pizza, burger and fries and be as rambunctious as we wanted to be – as long as we stayed put in the play room, of course.

For years, we celebrated the New Year at that house, but as all of us kids reached our teens, that tradition began to fade. We all had friends of our own and would rather spend time with them rather than our parents.

All these decades later, with my parents – sadly – long gone as well as the passing of many of my late parent’s friends, I look back on those celebrations fondly, remembering bits and pieces of our celebrations – mostly enjoying eating the candy and playing with the other kids, getting to be a “normal” child, which wasn’t the norm for me due to the health issues I faced throughout my entire childhood.

I may not celebrate the holidays like I used to – I still observe them, mind you! – but I have good memories of New Years past, being with my parents, their friends and all the kids who I grew up with from our days at the local church my family attended for many, many years.

I want to wish all of our readers a very blessed holiday season; I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and that you will have a fun-filled – albeit safe – New Years. Just remember to be careful: please don’t drink and drive. And, most of all, make to check out the myriad of marathons that will be airing on TV over the holiday weekend!

Happy New Year!!