I was just getting ready to write that New Year’s Eve was less traditional at our house, but I realized that our Christmas and even Thanksgiving menus have varied at least to some degree each year (Christmas more than Thanksgiving), but New Year’s Eve has been nearly the same every year since I’ve been married. And I’ll warn you, if you are throwing a big fabulous bash, I’ve got some suggestions for you, but you won’t get any help from MY planned menu. We have a hip and social friend who tells us that we are boring in our approach to New Year’s Eve, and we are. Here’s our secret:
New Year’s Eve in My Sister’s Kitchen, Minnesota
Okay, our Sadly Pedestrian plan is this: we rent several movies, buy a quantity of junk food (Junior Mints, Milk Duds, popcorn,….) and park ourselves in front of the tube for the evening. Our kids do not yet get the privilege of staying up until midnight, so somewhere around 9 or so, they go to bed. And we watch another movie or so. And when we hear the fireworks down at the State Capitol start, we turn to each other and say, “Happy New Year”, give smooches, and continue with the movie. Or, some years (see, there is SOME variation!) we don’t make it to midnight, so we celebrate it at the same time as Bangor, Maine.
Tomorrow night we will at least make a pretense of eating something valuable, and will make our homemade pizza.
New Year’s Day is usually pretty relaxed around here, too. I do plan to make our annual Apple Dumplings, as I haven’t gotten around to that yet. You might take a look at one of our three recipes for the traditional Dutch Olie Bollen (Recipe #2, Recipe #3) (Fat Balls–sort of like heavy donut holes, deep fried and rolled in sugar–VERY naughty!) And I am going to try very hard to post a few recipes from my friend’s family cookbook for the traditional Swedish Aebleskivers–a donut-y kind of thing as well.
If you are looking for hors-d’oevre-ish sorts of things to serve, I invite you to take a look at our extensive Thanksgiving post, which includes pretty much all of our hors-d’oevres. We have a lot of fun baked goods on our Christmas post, which you could take a crack at.
Otherwise, if you have specific things you are wanting to try, please feel free to comment here, and we’ll try to point you either to something we have here, or to something from one of our blogging friends.
I’m sure Barb will be along to chime in with any brilliant plans she has (unless her family is also doing the junk food plan. But she usually has a few more tricks up her sleeve than I do, so stay tuned.)
Barb here, chiming in as predicted.
New Year’s Eve in North Carolina: This year we have fairly simple plans. We’ll be joining friends to hang out for part of the evening. Our boys will make their rounds to a few different houses to play various games and eat as many treats as possible. The rest of the evening, we’ll be hanging out with our puppies. I plan to bring veggies and homemade roasted red pepper hummus. I haven’t posted the recipe for that hummus yet, but I promise that I will.
And please allow us to be the first to wish you a very warm Happy New Year, and God’s Blessings on you in 2008!
Laura and Barb
1 Comment
January 2, 2008 at 5:59 am
Our tradition was to dip fruit into a chocolate fondue every New Year’s eve, and to use up ALL the goodies left over from the entire holiday season. (It’s always good to give yourself at least a possibility of success with the new diet, right?)
Our house was usually pretty much a junk food free zone so when I did break down and buy those less than nourishing treats; my kids were as jazzed as if they hadn’t had a ‘junky munchie’ for eons. I can remember Mary racing to tell the others “look at all the junk Mom just bought”!!
So, I hope your binge was a happy one =) and that you will both begin a year of blessings.
Love, Aunt Joan
Leave a Reply