HAPPY NEW YEAR'S EVE!

So here we are; a New Year beckoning. The Christmas goodwill and gift giving a memory buried deep in turkey carcasses, pine needles and torn wrapping paper. Tonight is PARTY NIGHT; a night for getting dressed up, slapping on the makeup, drunkenness, kissing of strangers.....a right old knees up to the strains of Auld Lang Syne. Of course we will have all made sure we have drunk the obligatory glass of milk (to line our stomachs) and of course we will all make sure that every few drinks we down a glass of water; no hangovers for us tomorrow eh!!! Sadly it won't be long before that small sensible voice of reason is drowned in the tide of merry making and laughter. I mean it's only one night isn't it?...........we can be sensible for the rest of the year! Yes tonight's the night when the door to the future opens and all the troubles of the past fade into obscurity as we don our rose tinted glasses. New Year the chance to be larger than life; the chance to kiss that handsome stranger on the stroke of midnight; the chance to be reckless as the old year closes. To be honest the real chance is that we will have such a hangover in the morning that we won't remember any of it anyway!!!!!

And there are the RESOLUTIONS to make.................probably the same ones that we didn't keep LAST year. Losing weight has to be top of the list for most of us. But can we honestly believe we can do that..........remember all that EXTRA food you bought for Christmas.....the obligatory "must haves"..........nuts, dates, mince pies, Christmas cake, chocolates, the spare Christmas pudding (just in case one wasn't enough), a yule log, the cheeses, the biscuits, every sort of spirit and liqueur on the market (so that no guest was left without their special tipple)..................well all that is STILL sitting in the cupboard because we were all too STUFFED after Christmas dinner to eat any of it.......and since then we've been living on turkey pie, turkey curry, turkey rissoles...........and on and on. To make matters worse they all have "use by" dates stamped on them........ALL before the end of January 2007 (bet they didn't have THAT problem in Dickensian England)...............do you really think there's any chance of dieting!!!!

Of course there's always the "GIVE UP SMOKING" resolution to fall back on. But do you really think that's going to be possible considering all the stress you're under at the moment. Things at home are pretty sticky aren't they???....it's going to take at least 6 months to make up with the wife......do you remember that row on Christmas Day.....the one that happened AFTER she opened her Christmas presents- the new iron and a non stick frying pan!!! The kids aren't happy with you either are they? No matter how hard you try 14 year olds are not going to fall for the "Santa didn't have enough time to make them" routine when they didn't get the latest Nintendo. Work's a bit dodgy too.....the boss is going to find out sometime who broke the photocopier at the Christmas party when they were trying to photocopy their bum. And what if the tea girl tells her rugby playing boyfriend who it was that ripped her blouse trying to have a quick grope behind the filing cabinets! You can't afford to loose your job now! You saw the size of that credit card statement the postman popped through your letter box. If you don't get that paid off by this time next year the wife will be lucky to get pair of rubber gloves for Christmas! NO chance of giving up smoking with that lot on your plate.

I guess you're going to have to fall back on the sanctimonious "I don't do resolutions" ploy.......unless you try "resolving not to make resolutions". Now that's an idea.

In fact the more I think about it..........Mick and I may stay in tonight. We will snuggle up in bed, find a nice romantic film to watch and breathe a sigh of relief that we've made it through another year.........................