As 2015 comes to a close, we’re not dressed remotely like the folks in Back to the Future Part II. With that disappointing notion in mind, ask yourself, “Why should I celebrate New Year’s by watching a ginormous LED meteor crash in the middle of Times Square while sipping expensive, sparkling battery acid?” If the question truly makes you reconsider your basic Norman Rockwell holiday plans, congratulations, you’re above the rest of the New Year’s newbies. If not, enjoy your over-priced battery acid.
1. Treat It like Any Other Night
Why not? The earth only rotated on its axis 365 times…for the four and a half billionth time. This holiday exists to give people another reason to get wasted on a work night. Don’t wait for a cosmic event to celebrate and set your resolutions. Instead, continue your Breaking Bad binge, eat Nutella and hummus to your heart’s content, and most of all, just be you. Tune out the sounds of fun, festivities and fireworks outside; you’re above all those riffraff rousing ruffians.
2. Drop Something Other Than an LED Meteorite
Here’s a trade secret: The giant mainstream meteor isn’t the only ball crashing from the sky this evening. Several states host their own rendition of the ball drop; culture your darn self and check them out. In North Carolina, citizens drop acorns and possums. In Wisconsin, residents drop giant wheels of cheese. Want to see if your state has a weird tradition? Check here. Want to culturally appropriating New Year’s celebrator? Acquire possums, acorns and giant wheels of cheese and drop them all from the roof.
3. Wish Everyone a Happy New Year
The best way to spread Christmas cheer is to sing loud for all to hear, right? The same rule applies for New Year’s Eve. Start early in the morning, page through your phone book and call each number until you lose your voice. With your free hand, type out emails to each person in your address book. Show that random spammer promising anatomy enlargement some love and wish him a happy new year. Email the professor who hates you to a molecular level. Everyone will appreciate the love, even the ones who curse you out and/or threaten your life.
4. Kiss Everything with a Pulse
If you lack a significant other this year, don’t feel like you’re forever alone. After all, you hold the advantage: The freedom to share your New Year’s kiss with anyone and everyone. If you see a handsome fella in the corner, grab him by the shirt collar and plant one champagne-stained kiss right on his protesting lips. If you see a gorgeous young lady walking down the street looking tragically un-New-Year’s-kissed, pull a Clark Gable and make your own fireworks display. Every person on your kiss list will enter the New Year with love and a new therapist.
5. Orbit around the Block
When you get down to the nitty-gritty, we essentially celebrate our beautiful, blue ball’s orbit around the sun. Instead of celebrating another year by getting offensively drunk, why not give credit where it’s due? Buy sturdy pieces of cardboard and cut them into circles equal to the size of your upper torso. From here, go all out, decorating your Earth as you please. Then, latch the cardboard Earth to your body using handmade straps or, for the truly dedicated, superglue. Give yourself enough time to make your full orbit around the block before the clock strikes midnight and find your way back home just as the Earth completes its orbit around the sun to experience a cosmic New Year’s experience.
6. Live Vicariously Through Social Media
Avoid New Year’s FOMO by downloading Yeti Campus Story or Snapchat onto your phone (if you haven’t already, you hipster troglodyte). With these apps, you can party in multiple places at once. Rather than watch fireworks at any old rooftop party with strobe lights and ridiculously beautiful people along with a live performance from The Weeknd, watch hours of fireworks from the outdoor barbecue nobody invited you to or the dockside shindig on the beach—all from the HD quality of your iPhone 6s. If you feel depressed or teary-eyed watching your friends party without you, don’t fret. They’ll admire your virtual presence all the same.
7. Accomplish Your Resolution before the Ball Drops
We all know a slacker who sets himself up for failure by creating a bunch of resolutions and abandoning them by mid-January. Rather than follow in his footsteps, get the ball rolling (no pun intended) on New Year’s Eve. Trying to lose weight? Go to your local gym right after you finish reading this article, and don’t even think about leaving before you hear the final countdown to 2016. Trying to finish the great American novel that makes Fitzgerald turn in his grave? Chug an energy drink and go ham on that manuscript until you feel your heart combusting. This mentality makes you superior to your plebian peers before 2016 even begins. After January 1st, strut around and mock everyone else. Go ahead, friend. You earned it.
8. Sleep
If you hate holiday cheer or festivities normal people find enjoyable, like cat videos and Mean Girls, celebrate the most celebrative of holidays in the comfort of your bed. Sleep the night away and wake up refreshed in the light of a brand new year. Silence your cell phone to keep out those pesky friends and family members who only want to spend time with you on such a day. Instead of welcoming this New Year with party hats and champagne, tell it to buzz off and bury your head under the covers. Your internal clock (and your liver) will thank you.
9. Fill Out FAFSA
We all know that FAFSA begins accepting applications on January 1st of every year. Ring in the New Year by promptly filling out your FAFSA early. While all of the slackers watch the ball drop on their televisions or party it up on a chic rooftop, rest easy knowing you get first dibs on the best financial aid packages. For extra points, start shortly before the ball drops so you can hit the “submit” key at the stroke of midnight. Mom and Dad will feel so proud.
10 . Party like it’s 2016
For the nonconformists, screw this list altogether. This option reserves itself for only the most extreme of nonconforming New Year’s Eve celebrators. Like a true rebel, party your hipster pants off. Shoot fireworks from outside your bedroom window, run naked through the streets with nothing but a bottle of champagne and barge into someone’s house to scream the final countdown at the top of your lungs. People in your neighborhood will look at you in awe (or with intense concern). Either way, everyone in your life will learn one thing on New Year’s Eve: Nobody parties harder on December 31st than you.
