Seven reasons why big New Year's events are awful, and a house party is the way to go
New Year's Eve is the cherry atop the festive cake. A final feast before the January famine, promising drinking, merry-making, and a chance for single people to feel even more jaded than usual come midnight.
Broadly speaking, there are two schools of thought on how to structure the perfect New Year's Eve. School number one opts for the big occasion: A nightclub, a bar crawl or, most commonly, watching fireworks, wherever they may be.
School number two prefers to stay indoors, getting some friends round for a more low-key, if equally rowdy night in the front room.
Our thesis is simple: The latter is fun, free and flexible, the former stressful and lousy. Here's just a few reasons why you should consider shunning the New Year's night out...
1. The pressure to have fun
As anyone who has been through a university Fresher's Week can tell you, there is no greater buzzkill than feeling pressure to have a good time. New Year's Eve is arguably the biggest night in the calendar – an obligatory blowout with heavy media coverage and a government-mandated day of recovery – and that knowledge can make it difficult to relax.
It's like getting FOMO for an event you're already attending. 'Can't we just get some friends round and have a few beers?' No, a little fun is not enough, you must have all the fun. Didn't anyone tell you it was New Year's Eve?
2. The crowds
Embankment, Times Square, Champs de Mars: Most major cities have one central, extraordinarily congested event with which to welcome in January. Perfectly lovely in theory, but in reality these tend towards claustrophobia, anti-social behaviour, excess elbows, and other people's vodka breath.
Frankly, why do you want to spend New Year's Eve surrounded by strangers anyway? Even in public bars you wouldn't sit down at someone else's table, and most of us would rather walk to work than exchange words on public transport.
A healthy contempt for your fellow man works wonders the rest of year. No need to mess it up now.
3. The booze
Teetotallers, children and train drivers aside, most of us spend New Year's Eve getting at least a teensy bit drunk. You can get the requisites in one of two ways: Queuing at an overpriced bar, or making G&Ts in your friend's kitchen.
To be fair to New Year's Eve, you could make this argument at any point in the year, but there's an even worse fate that could await you: Getting caught up in the crowds and being unable to access booze at all.
4. The planning
New Year's Eve is the one night of the year that almost everybody turns out for, so any foray into town will need some forward planning.
First, make a group chat – filled with the usual mixture of micro-managers and ghosts that reply 10 minutes before the start time. Second, set a time and place – subject to inevitable travel disruption and half your friends being late. Finally, survive the night itself: How far do you plunge into the crowd, how much booze should you bring, and, most importantly, who will be held accountable if things go wrong?
Alternatively, buy a few crates of craft beer and/or champagne and let people loose in your living room.
5. The temperature
Not a week before New Year's Eve we had Christmas – a holiday associated with hot chocolate, the warmth of the fireside, and, in pop culture if not reality, snow. At New Year we go out late at night in shirts and skirts, stand around for hours waiting for the fireworks/our turn at the bar, and get so drunk our bodies haemorrhage heat without us noticing.
There is a reason we have Christmas jumpers not T-shirts: It's December, and it's cold. Choose a house party. Choose warmth.
6. The waiting
The strange thing about New Year's Eve is that the actual event – the clock flicking from 23:59 to 00:00 – is quite literally over in a second. The rest of the night is simply build-up, and behaves much like an ordinary, if rather raucous evening.
And there's a reason no ordinary evening is spent hanging around a crowded town square. It may put you in prime position when the ball drops, but it will also leave you cold, irritable and sober. Enjoy your overcrowded journey home. I hope that second was worth it.
7. It's all on TV anyway
'But no,' you cry, 'We've got to see the fireworks!' Wait until five to midnight, then turn on BBC One. Done.
Now grab a cold one out of the fridge, gather your friends round a roaring fire and ignore all the social media posts trying to peer pressure you out into the night. Enjoy a nice chinwag, and crawl off to bed when you see fit.
