NEW YEARS EVE // 2019 >>> 2020
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Today I am thinking about how December 31st was seven!!! whole!!! months!!! ago!!! …and how on that New Years Eve night, NONE OF US could have ever fathomed in our lifetime the type of year we were in for! Sheesh.
This is a post of snippets from NEW YEARS EVE night that Tom hosted at his parents’ house. It was our first NYE together and the best NYE I can remember celebrating. // WHAT A YEAR 2020 HAS TURNED OUT TO BE!
First, the main room: the Happy New Year sign over the TV and the crowns and noisemakers set out on the coffee table were from the 99-cent store. The half storm-trooper balloon was from a party Tom attended earlier in the month. And the best part - the 2020 balloons and metallic curtains - were done by yours truly.
“Don’t get the balloons,” said the Rowinski siblings. HAA! I said back to them because those Party City balloon numbers and metallic curtains from amazon were a hit, and worth every penny! I think this will be a decorative tradition I continue for years to come (see past use).
Tom and I dressed appropriately. He decided to gel his hair in a faux hawk as a nod to the exiting decade’s popular ‘do. I ordered that sequins jacket on Shein and to say I loved it would be an understatement. I wore a simple black bodysuit and the stretchiest shiny black leggings underneath, and the jacket did all the work! My ‘Happy New Year’ crown crown and strappy heels finished the look and gave me pure house-party bliss!
Then, the guests started coming through, and I made sure to set up my tripod and get this group shot at the beginning of the night, once everyone had arrived. Don’t wait until everyone’s deep into the fun the party, or too drunk to get it together, to snap a good group photo. Call for it the second everybody’s in attendance. That’s what I did here. I was like, “C’mon, party people, let’s get this out of the way!”
…and LOOK! Perfect! Everyone’s looking in the right direction (haa haa!) and are still relatively put together. The photo backdrop/tripod set up is also good activity for people to focus on at the beginning of the party while waiting for all the guests to arrive. Look at the bunch I got in front of the balooons + some other sweet shots after the ball dropped.
Also worth remembering is the random bunch of video snippets captured from the night, which - if you watch below - you can tell NOBODY would have been up for a group shot. Haa haa! Aside from my super fun outfit, the awesome photo backdrop I created, and the sweet New Years Eve kiss with my handsome man, Tom’s friend Matt improvising a NYE song to the piano playing in this video was one of my favorite moments of the night. SNL sign him already!
Oh, New Years Eve, I love you. Not as much as the 4th of July, but probably equally as much or even a little more than Halloween. You can see Barclay (from this post) getting in on the fun as well:
On New Year’s Day - JANUARY 1st 2020 - we slept in, hungover from the night before. We did a sluggish, afternoon clean up followed by a late afternoon nap. When we woke up, we took Barclay for a neighborhood walk to the local diner so we could pick up something to eat.
I got a patty melt hamburger and we ate back at the house. This was the last day of my teacher Christmas break, and I remember not wanting to surrender to it. I remember wanting to hold on to the magic of our first holiday season together for as long as I could. I suggested we watch home videos. (We were in the home he grew up in after all, since we were house/dog-sitting while his parents’ were in Puerto Rico.) He grabbed his baby albums instead, and OH, I HAD A BALL WITH THEM!
I swear, Tom and I basically had the same childhood. We grew up in the same neighborhood, ten blocks away from each other. We went to the same elementary school, had a bunch of the same teachers. I have an Amanda-version of every photo below! It absolutely cracks me up, and to answer your question: YES. Yes, I will be using a side-by-side of each and every one in our wedding slideshow. I die!
20 FRIGGIN’ 20. Who would have thought? You know, I’m one of the ones that believes she HAD the coronavirus at this time - before the media let us know what it was we had! I had trouble breathing, couldn’t taste for a couple of days, the worst sore throat of my life and chocked it up to a bad chest cold! It was going around our school the weeks leading up to December break! I went to urgent care and got a flu and strep test, both of which came back negative. The physician said, “It must just be a virus.” Yeah, no shit, doc.
Anyway, I hope you and your loved ones are well. I hope we all make it in one piece to the next New Years Eve. If we are lucky enough to get to move forward with the calendar, I wish you a celebration as perfect as the one I was a part of in this post. // Cheers, friends!
