Nothing Changes on New Year’s Day
Sushi, Dom Perignon, and low expectations: a recipe for a better NYE
It’s the most weightless week of the year: those six days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve — a mandated break, unlike a summer vacation where your colleagues are still on the clock. You don’t feel the guilt tingling through your Grecian getaway because your phone isn’t full of Slack notifications whenever you pick it up to start “THIS IS ABBA” over again on your Spotify. I don’t have children, so those six days don’t feel any different. I eat panettone for breakfast, but otherwise, it's business as usual.
We’ve all had the best New Year’s Eve of our lives, and if you’ve read this far, it has already happened to you, too. I remember reaching nirvana one NYE in my early twenties, discovering the perfect ratio of alcohol and marijuana. I felt like I could walk a tightrope from Big Ben to The Shrek Experience and back (until I woke up in a shrub.) I’ve convinced myself to slide down the railing of a sectional staircase, only to fall, ear first, to the hardwood floor. The next day, I went to Las Vegas, looking like I’d gone twelve rounds with McGregor. This dragon chasing is the point of New Year’s Eve — a night when those who watch the running of the bulls should run with the bulls. But all things should come to an end at some point. I stopped getting gouged by the horn of New Year’s around the same time when staying awake until midnight began to require some skill and performance enhancements. More on that later. So here’s what I like to do nowadays to make New Year’s feel new:
Try to find a party at a rich person’s house and work your way down the line. There’s nothing wrong with toasting at your friend's flat, but try to find a second location to spread your wings and fly once you’re good and soaked. Resist throwing a party at yours unless you make enough money for a cleaner to come the next day, and tip them double if they do. Do not dine at any restaurant with a prix-fixe menu, and do not hit the club. Not because clubs are wrong, but because the streets are a mess and Ubers are grim in the parts of town where clubs tend to be. You’re likely to get sucker-punched in a street fight or, worse, approached by a TikToker who’d like to know what you do for a living.
Stay up until midnight the night before and take whatever you need to ensure you sleep in as much as possible. Get a workout and eat a proper meal, but nothing gut-busting. Sushi is ideal, not the kind with fried chicken, though. Pick out the best outfit you’ve got that complies with the dress code (there's nothing wrong with casual), but wear a pair of shoes you love but have been hesitant to wear for whatever reason.
Stick with one type of beverage the entire night. Champagne feels right, right? And drink the same way you picked out where to party. Start with the 2002 Dom Pérignon and sip down the line to that €7 cava. Switch to water when the sun starts poking through the blinds. Never go to a third location (dinner doesn’t count), and if you’re sans designated driver, splurge for the Escalade. If you’re a bit older and curmudgeon-like, consider a pinky-lick of MDMA every 90 minutes. It’ll keep you off the cheese platter and on the hunt for water. It also makes the music less shit. But most importantly, don’t expect anything life-altering to happen just because you got a haircut and are wearing pants that require dry cleaning.
Depending on where you live and what you do, 2024 hasn’t been much to celebrate for many of us (I’m writing this a week before the Presidential election and halfway through Bake Off.) So, instead, let’s focus on New Year’s Day. How can you do yourself a favor next year? I find it hard to grasp that concept when thinking in years rather than days, but since next year is just a day away, start with tomorrow and work your way up. My future self would be delighted to find the following things (already) inside my home, so make a list of your own:
Coconut water, Advil, electrolyte powder, Xanax, a cooked pizza, a queue of bad documentaries, a Caesar salad, movie theater popcorn, and a good shvitz. Lastly, have your New Year’s Day outfit laid out like the first day of school. It makes for a good laugh the following day. I recommend resisting the urge to pajama until nighttime; it’ll help from feeling too infirm. You wouldn’t want to trigger one of those pesky shame spirals.
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