Congratulations! If you’re reading this, you’ve so far survived the first festive party season in three years. Give yourself a pat on the back – if you can still reach that far round.
I hope the extra pounds, liver failure and lawsuits you’ve incurred going halliracket at Christmas parties have been worth it.
“Course they have!” I hear you croak (let’s face it, your voice was away by Boxing Day), that’s the spirit.
The last blast
And here we are at Hogmanay, the last blast of the party season, the final countdown – hopefully not to a heart attack, but to a brighter, happier new year. Just try not to think about the clustering existential threats looming ever larger on the horizon.
Actually, can anyone still be bothered partying tonight? Has anyone got any money left? Any clothes that still fit? Any surviving brain cells?
“No, but who cares!” you rasp, and quite right. Hogmanay is back on this year without restrictions, so why not party like it’s 1999 (or 2020 in Downing Street)?
So, what’s everyone doing? I’m delighted to see Stonehaven’s Fireballs back in a literal blaze of glory.
As a teenager growing up in Stonehaven, I spent many a Hogmanay trying to get a snog singe distance from those great balls of fire. Sparks literally flew. I can still smell my hair burning while holes melted into my good Nevica jacket. Happy days.
Do people still first-foot?
Who’s getting The Steamie on? Who’s queuing round the block for a steak pie everyone will be too hungover to eat tomorrow? Are you first-footing? Do people still do that?
I live in the city and the idea of tall dark strangers trying to bring me coal or whatever and start a fight in my living room is about as appealing as a glass of grandad’s ginger wine from 1963.
By the way, if you have to cut through cobwebs to get to a drink, it’s not worth it. You’ve come this far. Death by Mirage or Taboo would be an anticlimax to say the least.
Speaking of anticlimaxes…
“That’s the bells!” you mouth, manically pointing at the space where your watch used to be (before you swallowed it for a dare at the office Christmas party). Someone on the telly, voice intact, says…
“Ten”
And suddenly time slows down as you wonder if you’ve still got a good excuse not to kiss everyone in the room…
“Nine”
Time speeds up again as you head for the exit…
“Eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two…”
The long final second
And in a long final second, you stop, spin round and see that in this room are some of the people you love most in the world, who didn’t get to party with you last year and the year before, who followed the rules with you through the hardest of times, and who are here now – notwithstanding your behaviour over the last few weeks – to celebrate being together, with you, however tough the year ahead might look.
And as your heart fills with love, a thought occurs…
“One”
You open your arms wide to everyone in the room, and using any form of communication still available to you, you tell them…
“Happy New Year! I’ve got cold sore, sorry!”
And at this point in the party season, that’s probably true.
