“Each age has deemed the new-born year
The fittest time for festal cheer.”
― Sir Walter Scott

Throughout December, both of us made noises along the lines of, “We should do something for New Year’s Eve,” whereupon the other would say something to the effect of, “Indeed we should!” After which we would go back to working/munching/watching British quiz game shows/goofing off. For two usually highly organized people we largely took the holidays easy this year – with the exceptions of dinner and the service (which were both planned weeks if not months in advance).

The trouble is that in a city like London, you have to have a plan for New Year’s or the chances of you getting trampled, mobbed, or left out in the cold are pretty high. But almost everything is pricey and booked well in advance. So by New Year’s Eve, just as we were emerging from our food and nap induced sluggery and ready to go out and do something, we realized that our chances of a nice night out were slim.

Nevertheless, we both dressed up and headed to our favorite restaurant in Covent Garden, hoping against hope that most people would be waiting until later to start their festivities and/or heavy drinking and space would be available. As it happened, we got a prime spot at the bar and the universe missed its chance to teach us a lesson in responsibility. Ha ha!

I still heartily endorse the elderflower presse. Mocktail of champions.

We ate delicious and artfully prepared food.

And we got delicious deserts which were so incredible that they actually made my phone’s camera to spontaneously readjust its own lighting feature…I think. I’m not a photographer, people. Interestingly, popcorn has had a bit of a fad year here in London, so apparently I’m trendier than I realized!

Then, because we are old fogies, we walked home across Waterloo Bridge past the throngs of people already camping out for the fireworks show. This year the organizers went in for a multi-sensory experience combining flavored and scented aspects with the already well hyped, traditional exploding. It sounded intriguing, but frankly not enough to stay up in the freezing cold and inevitable bad weather when…

…we got to watch them from the comfort of our own sofa while drinking tea and cuddling.

And that was how we rang in 2014. We might do something more ambitious some other year, but this year, it was just right.