Bah Humbug! Why I won't be celebrating New Year's Eve.

There are a few words for people who reject all things Christmassy just for the sake of it - you can be a Scrooge or maybe a Grinch. But what about those of us who are fine about Christmas but hate New Year's Eve? Because while Christmas has presents and boxes of Roses and little baby Jesus, what has New Year's Eve got? Nothing! It doesn't even have a particularly good song unless you're really into Auld Lang Syne.

I never had any strong feelings about New Year's Eve growing up, apart from the fact that it was quite fun to stay up really late for once. But after I reached the age when you were expected to actually, you know, go out and celebrate it, I started to dislike it. Partly it's because I just dislike the whole concept of an evening when society more or less dictates that you HAVE to go out, whether it suits you or not. I always felt like I being pushed into New Year's Eve. And then there's the fact that pretty much everywhere you go is awful on New Year's Eve - over crowded, over priced and over hyped. And when you do want to go home, either you can't get a taxi or the Nitelink is full of crazed annoying drunks. As for parties, well, there used to be more of them but in recent years I've realised that so many people I know share my NYE hate that they don't want to do anything either. It's not that I don't like socialising, it's just that NYE celebrations always feel so...forced.

So what's left? Well, my best NYEs in recent years have involved just going down the road to my sister's house, having a fun dinner and a bottle of wine and then walking five minutes home to my own comfy bed as soon as I feel like it. Or there are the cosy evenings spent at home with my husband and Jools Holland's Hootenanny, though I must admit that hasn't been the same since I discovered it was recorded weeks in advance (I'd always thought it was so impressive that they'd managed to get so many celebs in one place on New Year's Eve, which I now realise was a little naive).

So am I alone in my curmudgeonly ways? Are you a fan of the New Year celebrations? If at home, do you go for good old Jools and his slightly annoying boogie-woogie ways, or do you ignore any supposed telly celebrations and watch a film instead? And what exactly does Auld Lang Syne mean anyway?