Plan for evening comes into focus

Right now, there is no plan.
That’s not unusual at this point.
As I write this, New Year’s Eve is nearly a week away, we’re still digesting Christmas, the last of the houseguests haven’t yet caught their flight home, and — let’s face it — the notion of staying up until midnight is a little daunting.
But just the same, we’d like to go into the last holiday of the year with some sort of plan.
We could, if we were feeling ambitious, host a party on the big night.
But as I said, the last of the houseguests haven’t yet left. We’re looking forward to a few post-Christmas days of quiet, and hosting a New Year’s Eve party sounds like way, way too much work.
Besides, if I dozed off at 9:15 p.m., it would be impolite to ask folks to go home so I could go to bed.
We could, with a little less ambition, try some version of a night on the town. And that’s still an option, but at the moment I suspect inertia will prevail. Unless something cataclysmic happens, unless some lightning bolt of an idea pops into our heads, the two of us are likely to end up dozing together on the sofa as the ball prepares to drop in Times Square.
It wasn’t always that way.
One memorable — if slightly fuzzy in the recollection — New Year’s Eve we attended three great parties in a single night.
The first was in Portland at the home of Quentin and Libby Imel on West North Street. Both Quentin and Libby worked at the newspaper, and Connie and I always felt a special fondness for the two of them.
We hit that party first. I suspect that’s because once we were out of the way co-workers could let their hair down in true New Year’s Eve fashion.
The second party was in Redkey, and it was a little more rollicking. It was at the home of another youngish couple we’d become acquainted with and enjoyed.
The third was in Dunkirk in a house that had once been a funeral home and is now a funeral home again. I still remember Dunkirk attendees to the party coming into the living room and remembering how Uncle Somebody had looked when decked out in his coffin. As I recall, most of the party and conversation took place in the kitchen, perhaps for the reason cited above.
Looking back, that seems incredibly irresponsible on our part.
We had no children at the time, but we could have put others at risk.
Imbibing and driving were accepted behavior back in the 1970s; not anymore.
So chances are, we’ll be sedentary on Dec. 31.
Nothing wrong with that.
Sure, there’s something to be said for party hats and noisemakers.
But there’s something to be said for the absence of same as well.
We’ll use the night to reflect on the 12 months just past, how fortunate we’ve been, what wonderful friendships we’ve enjoyed, how we’ve been tested by the challenges that befell us, the folks we’ve lost.
Then we’ll wonder about the challenges ahead, the opportunities, the new people we’ll meet, the sunsets and sunrises, the wind in the trees, the smell of mud after a spring rain, the sweat from shoveling snow, grandchildren growing up and all that awaits us in 2015.
So maybe there is a plan after all.