Girls' Night - A Blog from Baileys Irish Cream

Beware the Resolutionaries

Yesterday was New Year's Day. And they were out in droves: the Resolutionaries.

You know who they are (and maybe you're one of them). They are the people who get up on January 1st and say, "this year, everything will be different. This year I will get fit! I will lose weight! I will cut up my credit cards and save my money!"

I hate Resolutionaries.

Now, don't get offended...I used to be a Resolutionary myself. Every year around this time, I'd get all down on myself for what a waste I'd made of the previous 365, and I'd vow to do better. I'd sit and plan how it would be: a thin, fit me, finally with my own slightly edgy but still really cool fashion sense. A thin, fit, fashionable me with a positive bank balance. A thin, fit, fashionable, rich me with a car. And a house. And a good-looking, successful, wealthy, smart, funny boyfriend. WOW. What a year it'd be!

But it never was.

I did get a car, house and boyfriend-turned-husband. And those things have brought me great happiness. But! They didn't turn out to be exactly  what I imagined in my resolutionary haze. My house is too big, and the finishes are dated. But we don't have the money for a total reno, so I have to live with 80s vintage honey oak everywhere. And we need a new furnace and hot water heater and oh! did I mention new windows? And by the time we get that paid off, we'll need a new roof. And the car. Well, it's actually a minivan and it's FILTHY but I sooooo don't want to clean it. And I had to get a new ignition barrel, because the key stopped working and that cost $600. And there's a rear seat that needs repairing but the quote was in the 4-digit range so we're holding off on it for now. And the husband...well, he's wonderful and all, but he's a real person, too, with real opinions (that he shares frequently) and both bad days and good.

And then one year, I actually did get thin. But I've still got to get fit and the jury's indefinitely out on whether I'll ever get a fashion sense. But you know what? Even though I've been able to tick off loads of those early-twenties fantasies, one thing never changed.

Me.

And that's what bothers me about Resolutionaries. You see, they're out there searching for something that's just not real. An imaginary version of themselves that will never come to pass. And I think that's why the Resolutionary boom of early January always fades by the 31st. I see it every year at my gym: the busiest day of the week is Monday (mini-resolutionaries out to change their lives after the weekend); the busiest week of the month is the first week, and the busiest month of the year is January.

So this year I'll do what I've done for many years now. I won't make New Year's Resolutions. I'll look back on the highs and lows of this past, precious year, and I'll look forward to the adventures ahead. And I'll make a deal with myself every day - today, I'll do my best to be a little bit better than yesterday.

Auld Lang Syne

Whew. Whatever winter festival you celebrate, it's probably over now (deep breath...and...relax). And now it's time to plan for New Year's Eve, that marvelously universal night of renewal and the freshest of all fresh starts.

I love it.

I've done it all, from formal parties with multi-hundred dollar tickets, black velvet dresses and champagne, to quiet nights at home enjoying a homemade pizza.

But out of my many New Year's Eves, a few stick out in my memory.

The Retro Cocktail Party
The year my husband and I moved into our first real house (and by that I mean that it came along with a mortgage, not a landlord), we threw a retro cocktail party. Why? Well, the basement had an old-school rec-room, complete with wood paneling and a dry bar. We figured: have bar, will bartend. We bought a book about cocktails at Chapters, and then hit the liquor store to stock up on some less common ingredients (at least in our beer-centric lives) like gin, triple sec, cointreau and a few more. Then I remember the quest for grenadine (ultimately we found it at a grocery store). We served up martinis, sloe gin fizzes, cosmopolitans...the more eccentric the cocktail, the better. Never mind that we still have the grenadine and other spirits in the liquor cabinet 11 years later...that New Year's Eve, with a few close friends, in our first house, will stand out in my memory forever.

Y2K
Blah. This will stand out as the stupidest most useless New Year's Eve for me. My then-employer was soooo uptight about the whole Y2K bugaboo. I guess I can call myself one of the lucky ones...I was just on-call at home (forbidden to go out or have a single drink - and unpaid, mind you) - my other colleagues were actually on-site at work. You know, just in case all the world's computers died and the cell phone network couldn't function. Ooooh...tragedy! Never mind that we had all watched Australia, Japan, China, Russia, all of Europe and Eastern Canada switch over from 99 to 2000 with nary a computer hiccup. Plans had been made, and plans had to be followed. Can you believe they even bought a generator and brought it into the office, just in case? All I could think was, if the Y2K bug does happen, there are bigger fish to fry than getting a cell phone company's call centres up and running again. Oh well. I survived!

The Effortless Good Time
One year my husband and I got tired of trying so hard to have a super! exciting! special! New Year's Eve. We decided to just rent a few of our fave flicks and had a "dress your own pizza" party at home. No guests, no going out, nothing planned. At the stroke of midnight, we heard a popping noise, opened the blinds and were treated to a display of fireworks (at Canada Olympic Park - a great view of which we have from our family-room window). It was the perfect topper to a fun, stress-free night and will always be one of my favourite New Year's Eves.

The Swanky Party
This was in BH days. As in Before Husband. I was young, carefree, and looking for ways to spend my money from my first real job. So I got together with a few similarly unattached friends, and we bought tickets to one of those expensive, formal hotel parties you hear advertised on the radio. It's not like we all met rich men and got whisked away for a night of romance and brunch in Rome, but I will always remember my black velvet dress, my high heels and a good, fun night out with my girlfriends.

Well - what about you guys? What are your most memorable New Year's Eves? What are you planning for this year? Share below in the comments.

The Amazing and True Story of the Knee-Hugger Elf

Yes. I did mean to say knee-hugger. Not tree-hugger. Knee-hugger.

Not this:

This:

See how s/he hugs her/his knees? That's a knee-hugger elf.

Get a load of these guys:

They're going for a starting bid of $9.99 on eBay right now. Just over 2hrs left in the auction and a wad 'o cash in my PayPal account...a match made in heaven!

Oh, but wait...look at this one...

Or - wow - my fave:

To tell you the truth, I had forgotten about these cute little ornaments/decorations until I saw this picture when googling "Santa's Elves" for a different purpose:

And a wave of nostalgia hit me.

I felt like a little girl all over again, playing with these adorable little felt dolls with my sisters, counting down the days until we could open the pile of presents under our tree. It was a time of unadulterated magic for me and my sisters - the lead-in to Christmas. And these little knee-huggers are emblematic of that wonderful, magical time for me.

So, of course I got obsessed with knee-huggers and their origins. Can you believe they were made in Japan? True! They were made in the 1960s by a company called "Yuletide of Japan". I can't seem to find any kind of information on this company, but eBay and other collectibles sites are full of them. Apparently they're worth more if they still have this "Made In Japan" label on them:

Sometimes truth is just stranger than fiction.

I wonder what happened to those old knee-huggers I grew up with? (Mom? Are you there? Do you still have them?) I'm not sure how well they weathered the seventies with three little girls who played with them like dolls, but I sure hope they're still around. I remember them being a little careworn, their faces a little smudgy, their skinny felt bodies all pilled and threadbare, their little pixie faces so full of innocence and that twinkle of mischief that  reflected our own.

For more weird-but-trueness, you DO NOT want to miss Kath's recent post at her personal blog, This Is Kat.