Truth be known, in my life I don't remember really raucous New Year's Eve parties. The  one I'll never forget is the very first one just six months after we were married. We were invited over to the home of a woman from a church we were attending. If I'm not mistaken, it was hardly Times Square. There were just three of us there--my wife and me and the hostess, who was only slightly older than we were at the time--maybe 30 or so. 

The transmission my memory sends me about that night has to be missing something--maybe another guest or two--but what is there in my mind is a bitching session when the hostess, after a drink our two, opened up about the lousy state of her marriage. We'd been married for only six months or so.

I wasn't thinking it was going to be some bacchanalia right there in the streets of the city. I honestly didn't imagine some hot party. I did expect some drinking, which wouldn't have been unusual, but may well have been unusual in volume. Instead, we got a sobering recitation of the woman's loveless marriage. 

We went home soon after twelve.

I should have guessed NYE was never going to be what its cooked up to be.

Number 53 is now history--no regrettable memories, but history will record one little detail that quite accurately summarizes our history of NYEs.

Barbara got the sweet idea that it might just be fun to have real champaign for once, so on NYE afternoon, she shuffled off to Wal Mart and lugged home a bottle, along with the prerequisite wine--we'd invited friends. 

Interestingly, two of the three couples who dropped by carried in their own bottle of the bubbly with the same motivations--they thought it might be fun to actually have champaign when the clock struck midnight. We giggled together because there stood three bottles of champaign on the buffet beside the wine.

One couple left before twelve, but two others made it to 2026, without much drinking, I should add. In fact, all three bottles of champaign stood right there, untouched, where they had when the party had begun. Okay, some wine was gone, but none of the true NYE fare had even been touched.

When the early-departing couple left, they took their bottle along, as did couple #2, which explains why the bottle my wife bought that afternoon is, as we speak, standing beside the milk in the fridge, still corked. 

A good time was had by all--don't get me wrong. But it warn't no blowout. 

NYE 2025 is in the books, memorable only for three graceful and untouched bottles of bubbly, who, if all goes well in 2026, may well show up again next year.

We're not getting old, we're there.