The Party's Over, Time to Get to Work

Ok, I am finally back! Our Seventh Annual New Year's Bash happened on the 2nd (we don't do it on the 31st anymore because sitters are easier to find on the Friday after New Year's) and it took me all day to get ready for the party and two full days to recover. :D Honestly, the only time I feel my age is when I am hungover. I used to be able to drink bourbon all night and be 100% after a breakfast of vitamin G (grease, if you are unfamiliar with the term). Now it is all headaches and queasiness, grumpy episodes, and naps. It's the total brain-dead behavior and lack of motivation that really gets me though: I just don't have that kind of down-time anymore to recover. My boys are always there to ask me to do something or decide something and I just want to be on the couch watching a movie.... Still, sometimes it is totally worth the hangover and Friday night was one of those nights. Want the evidence? Here I am in all my Amy Winehouse glory.

Don't be taken aback by the utter whiteness of the background-- I bought a roll of photographers' backdrop paper and set it up to get Rock Star photos of everyone at the party. It was a stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. ;-)

For the last six years, my husband and I have hosted a themed costume party for New Year's. It started with the 20's (I was a flapper, of course), then the 80's (dressed as the lead Heather), which was notable as the year I bought our karaoke machine. After that I was afraid of getting stuck in a rut, so I declared that everyone had to come as their favorite icon. (I worked out a mean, yet tame, Martha Stewart.) The next year I was hugely pregnant, almost 8 months along, and bade everyone to come dressed as their favorite movie character. I rocked an excellent Marge Gunderson from Fargo that time around. In honor of the incoming 2007, we had a James Bond 007 themed party. I will always be partial to that one because I love few things as much as fake gambling and tuxedos: I got both with the blackjack dealer that we had come in. Good times! And I think I won about 2000 pretend dollars that night! ;) Last year we had a White Trash theme and, boy, did my guests embrace their inner Britney's. I've never seen so many bruises and black eyes or pregnant smokers in one room! I played a trashy rocker and my shining moment came when I opened up the karaoke floor with a rousing rendition of "My Humps" by the Black Eyed Peas. Oh, yeah, I got class in fucking spades, baby.

This year, I declared that it would be the year of the Rock Star and that everyone must perform a song in character or they had to dress like a groupie (a couple guests cleverly worked the groupie restriction by coming as Dead Heads). I opted to come as my favorite trainwreck, see photo to the right. I bought my Elvira wig back in September, so I was all set; all I needed was to decide whether to go for her earlier, healthier look or her meth addict, trashy look. I decided to go with the healthier Amy, as the strung out, skeletal one just didn't seem plausible given my p.m.s. poundage on top of the holiday muffin top. :)

By all accounts, the party was a raging success. Usually the party ends somewhere between 1 and 2 a.m., this year it went until THREE. Thank God I had the foresight to hire our babysitter to come over the next morning at 8 a.m. I never would've made it if she hadn't been there!

It is bittersweet thinking that this might be our last New Year's here in Madison. We have so many friends that I love dearly and the thought of moving to England (or anywhere) and having to start over from scratch scares me to death. I know I won't lose the friends I have here, but there is no denying that proximity certainly goes a long way for making friendships stronger. And as much as I love my internet friendships and know that I will stay in touch with everyone that way, it just isn't the same as getting dressed up and knocking back a few with your girls over dinner or at your monthly "book club." I wanted to make a toast to all my friends at the party, but honestly I wasn't up for a cry, so I skipped it. I have a feeling that there will be a lot more parties in the upcoming months, if we really go through with this England thing and plenty of opportunities for tears to flow in gratitude and love and fear, too.

Love you all and have a helluva year!!!

p.s. I am leaving for England on Tuesday with Daddy-007 to go check out schools and the city, so my posting will be erratic this week. I will definitely post when I can and will be back in full effect on the 12th. Check out My Flickr feed if you want more evidence of the shenanigans from our party. There are so many good pics, it is ridiculous. :)

FYI: A head's up to my lovely and wonderful commenters: My one blogging resolution for the new year is to respond to comments via email. I've already broken it once (see below)! If you want to remain anonymous in your comments, you can use an easy email address that you set up just for your blogging (with Yahoo! or other), just add it to your Blogger profile and then blog authors can respond to you directly. Like I want to! I'll probably still leave comments back to those people with no email, but not as often or as regularly as those who do. :) Thanks for listening/reading!