My most memorable New Year’s Eve

This is one of those stories from my kidhood. I was a young teenager when my brothers and I decided to have our own New Year’s Eve party. Not too surprisingly, my folks were in agreement with the whole thing, as long as it was just us, and we gave them the money to buy the drinks — yes, they even let us have alcohol while we were still underage — and we stayed at home the whole time. 

So we managed to come up with the money for some wine, some beer and some soft drinks. Mom and Dad actually offered a small amount of their own hard liquor so we could have some mixed drinks and some Tom and Jerries. So the night was planned. We had snack stuff, drinks and games to play. 

On New Year’s Eve that year, we had some fun. Mom and Dad stayed pretty much on the sidelines and just watched as we made total fools of ourselves. Of course, they knew that it wasn’t smart to mix beer, wine, mixed drinks and Tom and Jerry batter. They knew that we were going to be sick the next day. But they just let us have our fun. 

We ate and drank and snacked and played games. We acted silly and goofy. Our parents played pinochle with us and we worked on a puzzle. We played music and jumped from one kind of drink to the other willy-nilly. We did all of this until somewhere after midnight. About then the stuff was catching up with all of us, and we had about decided to go to bed when for some reason one of the boys went outside for a minute and came back in to alert us to the fact that the cows were out. 

So off we went to round the cows up and herd them back into the corral. That didn’t really take too much so we were probably back in the house and in bed by close to 1 a.m. 

So off to bed we went and I think we all slept the sleep of the drunk. It seemed like only a few moments when Mom was hollering up the stairs that it was time to get up and get the chores done. We came dragging down the stairs, hung over and head achy. Then we found out what Mom and Dad’s ace in the hole was. We were informed then that after chores and breakfast, we would be cutting up a beef we had butchered several days before. 

Can you imagine? The smell of raw meat after all that drinking? It was awful, I tell you. It was awful!

It must have had its desired effect though, because three of us kids that were there that night don’t drink at all, and the other one drinks very responsibly. Some might think that my parents were way off base by letting us do that, but we were at home, under their watchful eyes. We weren’t out driving around where we could hurt ourselves or anyone else. They were monitoring the alcohol consumption and they had a plan to make sure the next day was not at all comfortable.

 I know it worked for me. I decided that while drinking isn’t bad in itself, getting drunk is certainly not for me. The next day isn’t worth it. 

Here is an old recipe for a hot drink. It has been around for many years.

Hot Spiced Tea

1 9 ounce jar (1¼ cups) orange-flavored breakfast drink mix

¾ cup iced tea mix with lemon and sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon allspice

¼ teaspoon cloves

Combine all ingredients and mix well. Store in an airtight container. To make tea; combine 2 tablespoons mix with 1 cup boiling water in a mug. Enjoy.