New Year's Eve Plans-a-Plenty

Haggis McBagpipe

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Jun 11, 2004
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What are your plans for New Year's Eve this year? Do you usually go out on the town, have a party at home, watch sappy sentimental 'ringing in the New Year' television stuff... or do nothing special at all? What was your most memorable New Year's Eve ever?
 

Rick van Opbergen

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Sep 16, 2004
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Well, the parents of a friend of mine are out of town around New Year, haha, so you can imagine what we are going to do ... PARTY! I like New Year, we always eat a lot of "oliebollen" and drink a lot of champagne ... My most memorable New Year's Eve ever? Must have been Y2K, just the excitement of both the fact the world may go under, and realizing you are entering a new millenium!
 

Paranoid Dot Calm

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Jul 6, 2004
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My Most Memorable New Year's Eve Ever ....

It was 1978, in Elliot Lake, Ontario. My girlfriend had my New Years' planned for me. I wasn't too impressed .... we were supposed to visit and enjoy New Years day with the family of my girl friends best girl friend.
Imagine that? Goin' somewhere to party and it being a strangers place. Parents of someone who I never met before.

So, I snuck out with an ex-girlfriend for the celebrations and to be sure of not being caught, I went to a party about 25 miles out of town.
It was a great party. Me and my "party" friend won the door prize. They took pictures of us holding the prize because it was at a Lions Club.
However; the picture turned up in the Elliot Lake Standard newspaper the next day!

Wow! - eh?

I was busted!

Yep! I'll always remember that New Years. It began with luck .... but that was all.

Calm
 

Haggis McBagpipe

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Jun 11, 2004
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Whoa, lots of great New Year's Eve stuff! Calm, you sure did get caught! HeatSink, have you been to a Murder Mystery before? What are they like? Rick, what is oliebollen?

I love knowing that most of the world is out there having fun with New Year's Eve, it's just that synchronicity thing happening, that appeals, I guess.

Has anybody ever participated in the 'First Night' that has gained such popularity in cities and towns? Is this just a Canadian thing, does anybody know, or is it happening in the States and elsewhere as well? It has been around for awhile in Vancouver, can't recall how long, though.
 
Re: RE: New Year's Eve Plans-a-Plenty

Haggis McBagpipe said:
Whoa, lots of great New Year's Eve stuff! Calm, you sure did get caught! HeatSink, have you been to a Murder Mystery before? What are they like? Rick, what is oliebollen?

I love knowing that most of the world is out there having fun with New Year's Eve, it's just that synchronicity thing happening, that appeals, I guess.

Has anybody ever participated in the 'First Night' that has gained such popularity in cities and towns? Is this just a Canadian thing, does anybody know, or is it happening in the States and elsewhere as well? It has been around for awhile in Vancouver, can't recall how long, though.

I haven't been to a murder mystery before per se, but I took my Dad to a James Bond dinner once. I don't think anyone died, but all the cast of villians were there wandering around and eating with us and stuff. It was pretty cool.

I live in Calgary and we had First Night for a few years, but then it seems to have gone away. I don't know the reasons why, I always enjoyed them. It was nice to just go downtown and hang out with people without spending a ton of cash or having the pressure of dressing up and stuff. It was nice, sad to see it gone.
 

Haggis McBagpipe

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Jun 11, 2004
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Re: RE: New Year's Eve Plans-a-Plenty

HeatSink said:
I haven't been to a murder mystery before per se, but I took my Dad to a James Bond dinner once. I don't think anyone died, but all the cast of villians were there wandering around and eating with us and stuff. It was pretty cool.

I live in Calgary and we had First Night for a few years, but then it seems to have gone away. I don't know the reasons why, I always enjoyed them. It was nice to just go downtown and hang out with people without spending a ton of cash or having the pressure of dressing up and stuff. It was nice, sad to see it gone.

I would love to go to a James Bond dinner. I'd like to try the First Night thing, too, I've never done it... I can only guess that Calgary's cold temperatures might have stopped it there?
 

Rick van Opbergen

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Oliebollen! :)
 

Diamond Sun

Council Member
Jun 11, 2004
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Within arms reach of the new baby..
Ooh Rick, those look very yummy!!

As for my most memorable new years, it was New Years ringing in 1999. Xendrick and I,not married yet, were living in this little 980 sq foot 1940's pink house in Edmonton. We decided that a New Year's hot tub party was in order, and we invited everyone we knew. And they all came.

We had between 80 and 100 people in our little house. It's a good thing they built houses solid back then, because I really thought the floor might collapse.

At midnight, I climbed up on the coffee table to do the countdown, and all I could see in the living room, kitchen, hallwas was a sea of heads. It was like being in a bar, people everywhere.

The party was a HUGE success. People still talk about "The New Year's party at Diamond Sun and Xendricks".
 
Re: RE: New Year's Eve Plans-a-Plenty

Haggis McBagpipe said:
I would love to go to a James Bond dinner. I'd like to try the First Night thing, too, I've never done it... I can only guess that Calgary's cold temperatures might have stopped it there?

I left Calgary for about 3 years to do a stint in the Navy and it was around that time when First Night stopped. My first thought was that it might be the cold, but there are a lot colder places in Canada than Calgary (although I haven't checked out if they have First Nights or not). Even so, Calgary has an above street walkway system called the Plus Fifteen which links all of the shopping malls and many of the larger office buildings downtown. Using this system, you really didn't have to go outside all that much to get around.

So, in short, I'm not sure why it failed.....
 

Diamond Sun

Council Member
Jun 11, 2004
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Within arms reach of the new baby..
Oh yes, I meant to mention that Edmonton still does a First Night Festival. I've never been, but it's a huge event there. I think that they have it in the underground pedway systems though. Oh wow, what you can find on Google. Apparently Edmonton has the oldest First Night Festival...

Here you go. A little info about my home town and their First Night Festival...

"Edmonton's first night festival is Canada's oldest, dating from 1988; 95 per cent of the night's downtown events are indoors and most are linked by pedway. The festival is an alcohol-free family event concentrating on the arts, families, and, most of all, fun. You will not be able to see everything in the one night so it is a good idea to plan what you want to see and get your ticket in advance. Leave the car behind and take the light rail transit to the festival free of charge."
 

Andem

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Mar 24, 2002
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Eh, I was going to go off to Florida this year for new years but I decided to push that by a few weeks until a couple of weeks into January instead... So this year I'm probably going out on the town with some friends and drinking a few kegs of beer. I'm trying to decide whether I should make that champagne instead, though.

Which ever one it may be, I'm sure Rev. would approve of my choice ;)
 

Haggis McBagpipe

Walks on Forum Water
Jun 11, 2004
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Victoria, B.C.
Right, like Calgary with their Plus Fifteen. I never knew about these neat new things. What a great idea, too, and as you say, no need for extra layers of warmth in either case.
 

Diamond Sun

Council Member
Jun 11, 2004
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Within arms reach of the new baby..
I used to catch the LRT from downtown Edmonton to the Unviersity and from my mom's building I could get to the LRT station without having to take a step outside. It's imperative to have underground and above ground pedway systems in freezing cold cities like Edmonton and Calgary. :)
 

Haggis McBagpipe

Walks on Forum Water
Jun 11, 2004
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Victoria, B.C.
It is just so strange not to have known that about Calgary and Edmonton. It does make total sense to have such systems in place, though, in those bone-chiller cities. I would like to visit Edmonton one day, I've either never been there or was there once when I was too young to remember.