The New Year!

It's taken me a while to post about New Years Eve. I put all the pictures on face book before writing this, so most of you have already seen them.But first... I did have a birthday this year. I don't know why so many people like to keep track of birthdays every year. Right around my birthday I have finally forgotten my actual age and most of the time spend at least half the year thinking I'm younger than I am. Well, this year my mother in law unintentionally did the math and found out my little trick. So... of course my husband wouldn't let me live it down. He had to bake me a cake and everything. And keep reminding me of how OLD I really am. Now it's going to take a whole nother year to forget.


Me eating the giant doughnut shaped cake.

 

Well, back to New Years. We did our usual and went out to our good friend in Geneva Florida's house. He has some property and really knows how to throw the best party ever. He used to get crowds of people. A lot would camp for the night that way they didn't have to risk a long drive home after drinking. But this year for some reason it was really quiet. I think a lot of people just got old. But hey, I aged a whole extra year and I still showed up. Maybe some were worried about that Mayan prophecy coming true a little late. Or maybe they had that flu that was going around. I don't know but it made for a very relaxing night. If you count blowing up a Christmas tree with gasoline and lighting of a whole arsenal of fireworks relaxing.

We arrived pretty early so we were able to get some pictures of everything before it was all set up.

Fire pit before it was piled up with everything.

You can see all the wood that was piled up.

 



Some of the fireworks being made ready for the big show.

Next year I will have to take some pictures of the food because it was truly amazing. There was the pulled pork that our buddy makes every year. And then Red always makes chili which is yummy and our buddy also has his black eyed peas ready, so there is those, and last couple of years he has make really tasty hot German potato salad. 

fire

 



The fire started off with a bang. Each year the pit is carefully loaded with old dead Christmas trees and boxes that beer came in. Some times old bra's are thrown in the pit. I should say placed on the Christmas tree to make it look like a girl. I think next year they better put some boxer shorts in that fire. Then gasoline is poured over the whole thing and then lit on fire with a roman candle. It's quite a site and something everyone should experience. I don't know why everyone isn't doing this every year. Way more fun than getting all dressed up and trying not to turn into a pumpkin at midnight.
Then we sit around and catch up. Talk about what we did the year before and what we plan to do next year and have a good time by the fire and light fire works and have so much fun. Then at the stroke of mid night... BAM! firework display to be proud of. Photography lacks something to be desired. Ha.

fire works

I hope that 2013 is a great year for everyone! After all... we have a new start. We can have a new out look on things and we have an opportunity to do things different this year. We can be better. We can do better and we can make 2013 the best year yet!

 



New Year's traditions

Every year we eat black eyed peas and rice on New Years Day. My Grandfather told me when I was little it was because the peas were for prosperity, the rice was for the riches and greens because that's the color of money. Plus it taste good and is healthy also. If you've been partying the night before it's the best thing ever. New Years Eve you just throw some black eye peas, onions, green peppers, and spices into a crock pot set it on low and the next day while trying to recover from all the champagne all you have to do is cook some rice.

I recently found out eating pork is also very lucky. Because a pig roots forward in the ground. Which represents forward movement into the new year. And we always have to have ham or hog jowl in the beans and now I know why.

Also I know eating chicken on New Years Day is very unlucky because it scratches backward and that is bad luck. Also anything with wings is considered bad luck because it represents your luck flying away.

Fish is considered good luck in some places because they can only swim forward and they look like silver. Which represents wealth. I bet fish would go good with some black eyed peas, rice, greens and corn bread. I don't know what the corn bread represents. Probably fullness.

Lou's big New Years Eve party.

We arrived around 4:00. No tent to set up this year. Since we didn't have the kids with us we decided to sleep in the mini van. We removed the back seats and put in a blow up mattress. We were excited to meat Lou's new girl, Robin. She was very nice and ready to party, and even though she wasn't a very outdoorsy type I think she had a good time. Except for when this weird bug was attacking her.

Lou had the pit for the fire all dug before we showed up. It was around 8 to10 feet across. The bigger the better.

Shortly after we arrived we enjoyed some hors devours. Kim made brunshager or something like that. It's a dip made out of liverwurst. Chris really liked it. Bonnie and Charlie brought rum balls and mince meat pie. We had some chips. It was all good. The best thing was the 15lbs of smoked pulled pork that Lou cooked up for dinner. Kim also made his famous chili. And Lou had his black eye peas in the slow cooker. No one can ever wait for New Years day for them and they get sampled all night.

Soon the Christmas trees were dressed in women's underwear with beer box hats. Then with a big kaboom the fire is lit by dowsing the trees in gasoline and shooting them with roman candles.

Chris was king of the fire till he fell in. Which is a after school special about being intoxicated and making redneck hot air balloons in a fire big enough to cook a man as big as Chris in.

Don't worry. He pushed himself out right away and escaped with only a small burn in the palm of his hand. Which is a good experiment of the effects of adrenaline on intoxicated people. Everyone suddenly wasn't.

This is some of the fireworks that we had that night. They were amazing.

All in all we had a great time and survived into the year 2010. Although the next day we woke up in a van. One of my teachers way back in high school use to love to say. "Your going to end up in a van down by the river."

Happy New Year 2010!!!

Click here to see a video of the fire being started.

http://s372.photobucket.com/albums/oo165/maimom01/?action=view&current=NewYear09057.flv