Did you have fun on New Year’s Eve?

I did a little poll on my own and discovered the answer to that question depends not only on what you did and how old you are, but more importantly, if you did the age-appropriate thing for how old you are.

For a kid, New Year’s Eve means two things.  The first is Fireworks, with a capital “F”.  Heck, there are only two times a year your fuddy-duddy parents will let you pop them, and this is one of them.  Girls like the big pretty ones, boys like the loud ones.  Girls like sparklers, boys like the pellets that turn into snakes.  Boys like to light them, girls like to watch.  In general, most boys are closet pyromaniacs.  They love lighting anything and everything … the bigger the better.

The second thing NYE means to kids is that they “get” to stay up until midnight.  It’s so exciting for them to watch the clock roll over into a new year, but they are really thrilled because for once, the folks are not getting mad at how late it is.

The next age group is the twenty-somethings.  (This group actually includes college-aged kids, but it would sound stupid for me to call them the “late-teen and twenty-somethings”, so bear with me.)  If you’re in your twenties, NYE means getting a date, going to a Party, with a capital “P”, drinking yourself silly, staying up REALLY late, and feeling terrible the next day.  The success of the evening can be measured by how bad you feel on New Year’s Day.  Twenty-somethings are the only age group for whom staying up late is an easy task.  This is because they have the option of sleeping until three the next afternoon.

Then we get into the thirty-plussers.  These people start looking at their watches beginning at ten o’clock.  Why?  Because it is their bedtime, and they don’t know if they can make it until midnight.  They all have kids and know if they party hard, they will still have little Mary bouncing on them at eight in the morning and will suffer dire consequences for feeling bad.

One couple told me that last year they were watching television, and at eleven o’clock, one looked at the other and said, “It’s midnight in New York … do you think we can call it a night?”

Now, there are people who are “crossovers” … who enjoy doing the stuff that other age groups are doing. 

Some twenty-somethings still want to do the fireworks thing, even though it’s not required anymore.  And some thirty-plussers will also be in the thick of things when it comes to firecrackers.  You may even find a dad who will fight the kids over who gets to light the stuff.  Remember, males are all pyromaniacs and get kicks out of lighting anything that requires fire.  Fireplaces, bonfires, anthills, vacant fields… you name it, they’ll light it.

I suppose there may be some twenty-somethings who would rather go to bed early, but I don’t know them.  Even if they have kids, there is still a lot of teenage blood in their systems that screams, “Let’s party!”  And there are plenty of thirty-plussers who still enjoy staying out late, but it gets harder and harder with every passing year.

So, who had fun on NYE?  If you are a kid and got to do firecrackers, you did.  If you are a twenty-something and you went to an awesome party, you did, too.  If you are a thirty-plusser and you were still conscious at midnight, you are plum proud of yourself.