Boxing day, I got up, hit the sales and promptly came home.  I wasn’t well at all.  I think I picked up a cold from somewhere, I’d felt it coming on for a day or two, but it hit me like a ton of bricks on Boxing day, so, I slept!  That unfortunately made us miss the Maddens Boxing day celebrations, but the room spun when I stood up, so it was better to lie down.

Thankfully it didn’t last longer than 36 hours, and it meant that our trip to San Francisco (which, I’ll of course write about in a separate blog) was fun and not overrun by me being laid up in bed the whole time.

New Years Eve, we needed to go to Crate and Barrel to replace a set of bowls that had cracked.  While there, I of course had to have a nosy, (where I picked up an adorable cake stand) and, since we were next door to Williams Sonoma, we had to have a nosy in there too (after a mediocre lunch at PF Changs).  It would seem in an attempt to aid my hostess etiquette, my friends have created a homewares monster!!!

I normally don’t ‘do’ New Years Eve, 8 years ago, one of my very dear friends was killed.  Her boyfriend got drunk and crashed the car, neither of them survived.  From that day onward, NYE has forever been tainted for me.  I’ve never really enjoyed it, I’ve never gone out, or been a huge fan of celebrating it.  It’s usually a day of great sadness.

I’ve also developed a zero tolerance policy for drink driving – which, considering we live in Houston, where the majority people drive under the influence on any given weekend, means I’m complaining pretty much all the time! (Shock horror!)

This year, the Maddens hosted a NYE party, the food was 80’s themed (which, inspired me to host an 80’s birthday gathering for Col’s birthday later in the month, complete with costumes!) so a bunch of us (Van der Waals, Grants, Tracy, Trudy, Nancy, Wrights, Maddens and the McMasters) got together for a hootenanny at Casa Madden.

I will admit, I drank.  I drank more than I normally do, but less than I brought with me to drink.  I guess I was somewhat stressed and compensating with alcohol, no, I’m not ashamed to admit it.  Someone almost rammed us on the way to Magz and Sams ((s)he had to have been drunk, they almost rammed the person in the lane to the other side of them too), I was already dreading the evening to begin with, I needed something to calm my nerves and Eve cuddles were out as she was in bed!

Anyway the party was great, we clinked in the new year with champagne, hugs all round and some pretty retro (and tasty) food.

If you can believe it, I didn’t take a single picture…bad Las!  I’ll blog a separate post about my resolutions, of which, as always, there are many.  I hope you all had a wonderful New Years celebrations and I wish you all the very best from 2012!