New Years' Eve = EPIC Party Night at the Crouch House!

Okay.  Maybe the title above is a slight exaggeration.  Alright - maybe it's a huge exaggeration.  We spent last night as we have spent the past 12 or so new years' eves (and maybe more).  Namely, we were at home, with our children.  I think the idea of "partying" for this particular occasion stopped being appealing for me when I was 25 or 26 years old.

That being said, we had a good time with our two older kids up until awhile after midnight.  My son, recently 12, regaled us with a series of impressions.  He takes requests now, which reminds me a lot of myself at that age.  He can do some seriously good voices, including most of the cast of the Simpsons, Kermit the Frog, MANY cartoon and video game characters, and more.  Sincerely, he makes me laugh out loud almost every day now, and I consider myself to be pretty discerning when it comes to what constitutes decent comedy.  :)

We mainly just spent time hanging out with each other until around 11:20 or so, when I turned on the TV to see what countdown shows were on, including the traditional Dick Clark one.  Frankly, watching Mr. Clark now makes me cry a little bit since he's so hard to understand, but I love the fact that they respect him enough to allow him to continue as one of the hosts. 

All four of us who were awake enjoyed making fun of the Backstreet Boys and New Kids on the Block, who inexplicably turned up around 11:40 on the Dick Clark show and performed together.  What year is this again?  It was mainly like watching a group of dads who had a few too many drinks and were coaxed into doing off-key karaoke together.  The fact that there were about a dozen dudes on stage at once didn't help matters.  I figure they must have a really good agent to score that gig.

After the kids finally went to bed (after 1am!), we watched a couple of episodes of "Little Britain" before bed.  I think it's one of the funniest British comedy series that I've seen to date. 

Today, we managed to get all of the Christmas lights, decorations, and tree taken down, which is the earliest such occurrence in recent memory.  Usually, we're lucky to get it done by mid-to-late January.  We did some other house cleaning while we were at it, so it was productive in general. 

Tomorrow is our 18th wedding anniversary, so we're planning an outing in the evening (destination to be determined).  It's still hard to believe that much time has passed already.

Happy new year to all of my friends here at ActiveRain!  I started blogging here in 2007, which means that this post is being written in the fifth calendar year in which I have participated in this community.

May God richly bless you and yours this year.  I hope you have a safe, happy, healthy, and prosperous 2011.