Nashville, TN: There's so much pressure on New Year's Eve to have an amazing time. The night has to be excessively fun and you have to be consistently laughing and dancing with your best friends and drink exorbitant amounts of alcohol. Then there's the midnight kiss with that perfect person... don't even get me started about THAT pressure!
So I decided to put a spin on NYE and instead of celebrating on the 31st, I flipped it around and partied like it was
1999 (remember when that used to work?) on the 13th.
And I rung in the not-so-new year with 171 of my "closest" friends.
And I went on a pub crawl in downtown Nashville.
And I wore a Mrs. Clause outfit.
Ok, so it was a
little different than a true end of the year celebration, but
Santa Rampage still had almost all of the ingredients to a movie-scripted New Year's Eve party.
First off, I had to LOOK the part.
Then, we walked up to the Christmas tree at Union Square to commemorate the event.
And then the crawling (actually, only walking at this point) begins.
Second stop is at Coyote Ugly. Though they encouraged all the female Santas to dance on the bar, I was far too sober to do that so soon!
But when we moved to BB King's, where we grooved (more appropriately) on the dance floor.
And then back to more crawling.
Somewhere along the way, we met up with some men in uniform (doesn't this picture make you proud to be an American?!)
And there was even a band that played up & down 2nd Ave! Covering all the holiday classics, in including "Jingle Bells" and "Hava Nagila."
But, most importantly, I spent the evening with sweet friends....
Toby, May & Tim...
Evan (who usually is very grumpy... looks like Santa can put him in a good mood!)...
JB (otherwise known as "Santa Pimp")...
the happy couple, Chris & Jess....
and, of course, one of the founder fathers of Santa Rampage Nashville, the funny, the reliable, the awesome, Andy.
At the end of the day (and by day, I mean 3am the next morning), I reflect on my existence in a sea of santas and am grateful for having an opportunity to celebrate the year on MY clock, defusing the potential power that Dec. 31st may have over my psyche.
