New Year's Eve - Deception Part 2

New Year’s Eve is always a bit of a tricky one. The last couple of years the children have stayed up for it (or in Rachel’s case, woken up for it.) They have loved it, it is all very exciting for them, but it does mean you start the New Year with very grumpy children. This also makes it very hard for me to keep my New Year’s Resolutions of being extra patient and not losing it and shouting at the children.

Patrick gets particularly tired and inevitably there are always quite a few late nights in the holiday time. After a while, his extra sensitivity, caused by lack of sleep starts to wear a bit thin. In exasperation I said to him:

“Patrick! Do you have to keep crying about every little thing that doesn’t go your way!”

“I’m not crying!” he wails defiantly “I am whingeing!”

Either way though, this is the very condition I am anxious to avoid.

This year, we were in Somerset with friends and decided to have fake New Year. We secretly put the clocks forward, had a bit of a children's disco and some games and then counted down to midnight. We played them 2012’s Big Ben bongs and firework display from youtube on the ipad and all 7 children and the adults were completely swept up in the excitement of seeing in the New Year. 

I did wonder what everybody else in the complex of Swandown cottages thought as the sound of us singing Auld Lang Syne floated out of the open windows on the stroke of 9pm.

It worked like a dream though, and the children all went to bed beautifully, as it was so VERY late (according to them.) By the time the real midnight came, they were all fast asleep and us grown ups were free to enjoy seeing in the New Year as we wanted to celebrate it, in a far more, or perhaps less, civilised manner.

Sceptic Ben of course knew they had been duped but kept it to himself. He clearly knows that with knowledge, comes privileges.

Everybody was very taken with this genius idea of fake New Year. Uncle David said he felt that perhaps even more important than encouraging the belief in Santa Claus, was upholding the belief that on New Year’s Eve, midnight is 3 hours earlier than it actually is.