Best new year’s eve

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@AmbiePam asked about most memorable new year’s eves… Several have been memorable for different reasons but the best one was probably Jan 2000. I was living in Minnesota in the US. I had a friend there (Charlene) who was one of those people who just accumulates friends, especially people like me who were incomers with no family around, and she always loved hosting parties, and so I knew other people through her. Well that particular time, she decided to hold a small party. One friend lived in an apartment block and the block had a basement room you could hire for events, so we booked that. When the evening came I wasn’t sure what to expect. Charlene had invited a motley group of people and told us to dress up in something special and bring food and music to share. There were not that many of us. Charlene (who was American, originally from Virginia); her husband who was originally from Italy; her husband’s father who was visiting from Italy, was in his 90s and didn’t speak any English; a couple of Romanian friends who now lived locally; the Romanian husband’s parents who were visiting and didn’t speak any English; a couple of Venzuelans who now lived locally, their teenage daughter and younger daughter aged six, and me (British and not speaking any Italian or Romanian) – so 12 of us. In a big empty room. Well it turned out to be one of the best parties ever! Everyone was dressed to the nines so that instantly makes any event feel special. We had a drink, welcomed and introduced everyone, played some Venezuelan music and danced, had a drink or two and chatted a bit, danced some more, had some Italian food, another drink, some more dancing… you get the idea. At midnight we did all the traditional things from different places – sang Auld Lang Syne, drank champagne, ate 12 grapes, sang along to something in Romanian… I can’t remember the rest but it was brilliant fun. We could be as noisy as we wanted because the room was soundproofed. Somehow, with lots of dancing, good food and drink, we partied until 6am! Both the 90-year-old father and the 6-year-old daughter made it to the morning and the only person who didn’t was the teenager who got into a sleeping bag in a corner sometime in the early hours. When we emerged it was of course the year 2000 and just starting to get light (winter days there are longer than here). Without giving it a thought I got in my car and drove home and everything was just the same as usual – remember all the scaremongering about the ‘Millenium Bug’ and how cars would stop working, planes wouldn’t be able to fly, power supplies would fail, and all that? Some people made an absolute killing ‘fixing’ the ‘problem’. That was certainly a very memorable new year and still sticks in my mind all these years later – although I struggle to get my head around it being 26 years ago! All rights reserved. © copyright Fleur 2026.