New Year's Eve 2008/2009

Italy, evening

I wrote already I don't know how many times that Christmas holidays are a bad time to be down. It looks like you have to be happy. Family getting together, everyone feels he has to be nicer to the others.... If you are not that happy, the feeling that you necessarily have to be happy, because be down and Christmas atmosphere really don't go well together, make the person feeling down more stressed than necessary...at least this is what happens to me.

Thinking about how to spend New Year Eve is even more stressful. I am not superstitious, but I don't know why in my head I have this idea that a) you have to have fun on New Year Eve b) you can't spend that day alone c) you have to go to bed late d) you have to do something different from what you would normally do e) THIS IS THE MAIN STRESSFUL PART: you have to start the new year in a great way, otherwise the coming year is screwed up!

Based on the e) assumption is that if you do not enjoy the first day of the new year, you can just forget to have any chance to have a good new year...so, you can basically bypass the entire new year and postpone everything to the following year (just accept to be in a sleeping mode for the following 12 months). This just to hope to make it in a not catastrophic way till the following year.

The direct outcoming of all this is a huge stress on what to do on New Year Eve. The rules to try to have a good coming year are (at least in the area from where I came from):

a) wear red new underwear (the old one is not valid!!!)
b) eat lentils (they "bring" money)
c) eat at least 12 pieces of grape (one for each month)
d) eat litchis (which of course are not typically from Tuscany, but with all the Chinese people who moved here, we got also some traditions from them and to avoid any risk (you don't want to risk to have a bad year just because your local diet doesn't include litchis), better to make everyone happy and follow also the Chinese tradition)
e) if you make a "cin cin" (how do you say this in English???) with a glass of champagne, you have to stare at each other eyes while doing the "cin cin". If you don't, you will have seven years without sex (in other places I heard that is seven years of bad sex). Beside that I don't know if it would be worse seven years of bad sex or no sex at all, considering my current situation, I don't want to risk again and so I will make sure that even if I don't drink anything at all, I will make "cin cin" with everyone and stare at them right in their eyes.

What else??? I am not sure....if you know something additional that I should do, please let me know, I have to do as much as possible to avoid another shitty year.

So far, I don't have a plan on what to do on New Year Eve. My ideal night would be to have dinner with some good friends, go dancing or play some games and then go to bed with the person I love :-)
Since this last point is not going to happen (and I have to admit that I really envy anyone who will start the new year in the arms of the person they love because I can't think of any better way to start the new year), I still hope for a nice dinner with good friends.....

I will keep you posted.