Auld Lang Syne Research

Each year at the holidays, we are lucky enough to get to travel to Northern NJ and the NYC area to visit with almost our entire family on both sides. A large majority of them live up there in Jersey, the homestead of both of my parents. Whoever doesn’t live there tries to make it into town during the week after Christmas, staying usually through New Year’s. I love marking these days off my vacation day list each January -- it gives me something wonderful and family-oriented to look forward to as a vacation. Plus, um, it’s NYC at the holidays. You can’t beat that!

I have many a fab memory spending New Year’s Eve hunkered down with family, lavish meals, drinks and music. Times Square? Pssh. That’s for amateurs and people who think it’s cool to stand in one place all day to count down to midnight while temps are in the teens and it’s snowing and you can’t move and someone over to your left is getting ill. No, thanks. I’d much rather spend it watching the ball drop on TV with a drink in hand :)

This year, the holiday days land on weekends, and most of us start back up again at work on January 3. So our trip up North is going to bring us home again the morning of NYE ... And since I am never here on that evening, I am clueless as to how on Earth we are going to celebrate this “holiday” in a town with A) fairly inept public transportation or cabs, and B) budgets that don’t want to be blown on the huge hotel parties.

Here are my immediate (budgetable) options for that evening, as I see them ...

• Stay in for the evening at the condo, perhaps hosting a few friends for the same type of low-key soiree we’d usually have in NJ. Canapes and champagne and Carson Daly’s Countdown make for a delightful evening, after all ...
• Head out in Buckhead somewhere in walking distance, since we all know cabs are impossible to grab on this night in town. I hear a few parties are taking place around Lenox Mall area, and a few restaurants are doing reasonably-priced all-inclusive menus ...
• Take MARTA into Midtown or Downtown for a shin-dig at someone else's place. That would require battling the Peach Drop crowds though ...

So as you can see, I am a newbie to this. What is your favorite way of ringing in the New Year? And ATLiens, what’s your favorite go-to destination for this big night?