1/1/24, 11:26 AM Hannah Betts: I hate New Year’s Eve – there, I’ve said it

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I hate New Year’s Eve – there, I’ve said it

I have always regarded February 14 as an event for those who don’t have sex – and December

31 as the preserve of people with no social lives

Hannah Betts

31 December 2023 • 7:00am

469

I remember the first new year in which I qualified as both permitted to stay up for the

occasion and cognisant that this was a thing. I sat with breath girlishly bated, I watched and I

waited, and I counted down the seconds until the moment came.

And then, nothing. Nothing happened, nothing changed. Midnight chimed, the infant year

staggered into being, and with it no deus ex machina descended – no transition, no shift.

There I was, unkissed by tall, dark strangers; my eternal love entirely unsolicited; without

drama, declarations or dancing girls. It was the first of a lifetime of anticlimaxes, watching

kilted types shuffle away from variety performances featuring no variety whatsoever, ready

to fall asleep in front of Singin’ in the Rain, wheeled out as an annual consolation prize.

I felt robbed, swizzed, staggered by this colossal non-event. At least on Christmas Day there

were presents, a certain sparkle, food and good cheer. New Year appeared to be an entirely

theoretical occasion, underscored by the fact that it rolled out across the planet at different

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1/1/24, 11:26 AM Hannah Betts: I hate New Year’s Eve – there, I’ve said it

times, from Tonga on the morning of December 31 to Howland Island at lunchtime the next

day. At least the rest of the world refused to engage in our masochistic bagpipery, the

collective howl with which we greeted January 1, as if matters were not dismal enough.

Decades on, I feel about my New Year phobia the way I feel about my depression: how can

any sentient individual not feel the same way? Mine is not the neoannophobia written about

by psychologists: terror of New Year as a manifestation of ageing and a step nearer death, the

fear of technology, or a focus for loss and regret. Mine is a more superficial and immediate

resistance to a bad – by merit of being utterly banal – time.

I am stalwart in my objection to doing what I’m told – the decree “enjoy yourself now for

some entirely arbitrary reason” not least. Just as the vampires on Buffy the Vampire Slayer

despise Hallowe’en as an occasion for horror’s amateurs, I have always regarded February 14

as an event for those who don’t have sex, and December 31 as the preserve of people with no

social lives. Add the pressure to arrange something – ticketed perhaps, exorbitantly priced,

for which you dress up – and the potential for boredom, bathos and utter disillusionment can

be considered set in stone.

In over half a century of the things, damp squibs abound. The only real excitement occurred

when some friends and I were chased by guard dogs, then forced to scale a 16-foot hedge,

after gatecrashing some shindig. Otherwise, there has been merely the festering awfulness of

so much #forcedfun. My teens taught me never to be in a pub for this great non-event, as the

faux camaraderie was too buttock-clenching. Later, I extended this to parties at which one

might become stuck, cab-less, into the grey light of morning. I once inadvertently picked up

a young pop god, forced to kiss him to stop his chatter, taking until mid-January to winkle

him off.

I barely remember what I did for the millennial shift. So appalled was I by the freighting of

this, “the New Year to end all New Years”, I took refuge with my family. If the much-feared

millennium bug had kicked in, planes careering out of the sky and the Earth implosively

ending, then I wanted to be with those I loved. This turned out to be the end of that phase of

family for me. My father had a stroke three years later, my mother banning me from the

home for reasons best known to herself. As a result, it was a squib that subsequently

acquired a prelapsarian feel.

As I grew older, the parties from hell morphed into dinner parties from hell: worse for their

dullness potential, clammy passes, and hammered internecine disputes. Gradually, I devised

means of genuine pleasure. Frequently I’d lie about my whereabouts, opting instead for the

bliss of doing nothing, on my tod. One year, I booked a solo seat to watch Alex Jennings in

Present Laughter, strolling home along the thronging South Bank to be home by 11pm.

Another evening, I bagged a 7pm slot at The Wolseley, when the wonderful Jeremy King still

ruled the roost, spiriting myself away to a lover before the toasting tedium. More often, I’d

have a bath and head blissfully to bed.

I concede there have been some scant winners. As 2001 dawned, I spent January 1 sitting in

my darkened studio flat, on the phone to a friend in Afghanistan as bombs dropped. For

most, this might count as another flop, yet I remember being happy – all gallows humour and

joy that my mucker was in one piece.

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1/1/24, 11:26 AM Hannah Betts: I hate New Year’s Eve – there, I’ve said it

A handful of parties have been utterly sublime. There was one fabulous bash at which I

deluded myself I was dizzyingly in love, an impression lasting a full 48 hours before

withering like the mirage it was. At another great jape, we sang around a piano in 1930s

evening garb, with an aftermath spent quaffing fizz and watching films in exquisite silence

with two adored pals. And what about the knees-up that led to me acquiring the love of my

life; by which, as an Englishwoman, I obviously mean my dog?

There have been strolls along a frozen Lake Michigan in Chicago’s Windy City; cries of

“auguri” under the stars in Umbria and Sicily’s Piazza Armerina; and kisses sporting furs on

the streets of East Berlin. However, life teaches you that the best things don’t happen on

occasions with a capital O, but on Tuesday afternoons in October, when one hasn’t flossed.

As a result, my best New Years Eves have been those spent with beloved pals in

Pembrokeshire: supper round the kitchen table, then sloping off at 11.10pm to avoid any

countdown crassness. Or basking on the sofa in pyjamas, my partner, Terence, reading us

Waugh’s Put Out More Flags, while the whippet and I groan with pleasure. Behold, a truly

happy New Year. I wish you the very same.

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