Monday, December 30, 2013

New Year's Eve is the Worst;How You Can Make it Better!

New Year's Eve is the worst holiday, yep, I said it. It usually sneaks up on you in the midst of your cozy winter break away from reality: one minute, you are snuggled up on your parents' couch watching the 18th episode of Law and Order in a row; next thing you know, tomorrow is NYE and you have Lousy Plan A and Lousy Plan B to choose from.

Let's talk about Lousy Plan A: Have an extra $1,095 lying around? Perfect, that will get you a table at...TGI Friday's, complete with champagne for two! Have a slightly smaller budget? No worries, here's Lousy Plan B, entrance to a pizza-and-well drinks open bar at Artichoke's Pizza will only cost you $125. Comparatively, a slice normally runs you $4.50. That's almost 28 slices of fatty delicious pizza you'd be spending on NYE alone.

The hyper-inflated prices for most parties result from the work of one company, Joonbug. The company capitalizes on everyone's need to "go out and have a good time" on holidays like Halloween and NYE by colluding with any and all venues they can find, charging insanely high entrance fees in this near monopoly. By locking down all venues from TAO to the AMC movie theater, to go out on NYE will be an expensive way to get entrance to a loud, crowded room while the party glitter haunts your hair for days to come. Expectations are usually set way too high and almost always let down. I think I'll pass.
A Steal at $175!

As I was grinching and grumbling about my hatred for NYE to my friend K via Facebook chat, she gently reminded me that NYE is a time for reflection, a time to reminisce over 2013 memories. Instead of the wild year-end blowout bash that the media has ingrained as our ideal NYE, the last day in December provides a perfect period for reflection. Instead of asking yourself the panic-inducing question: "Where did the time go?" ask yourself and your friends: "What were some of your favorite memories from 2013?" My perspective suddenly shifted as the question I asked changed.

For me, 2013 was a year of many milestones and happy memories, from a stressful 2-day trip to Paris, getting lost in the mountains outside Barcelona, to landing my first big-girl job, I'm grateful for all the opportunities and experiences. I'm thankful for the million little butterfly effects that have brought me to today. And for you, in order to jog your fuzzy memories for all of 2013, Facebook's Year in Review is super helpful!

Perhaps New Year's is not so bad after all, as long as there's plenty of noisemakers and even more champagne. Happy (almost) 2014!