Happy New Year!

Alanna Coca

 

Wel­come to my lit­tle cor­ner of the web! For those of you who are new to my site/blog, I write roman­tic sus­pense, con­tem­po­rary, and his­tor­i­cal west­erns. My lat­est release is Pre­View, a roman­tic sus­pense with a psy­chic flair.

I took the tree down already, and swept the vir­tu­al pine nee­dles away. Now I can focus on 2012!
I hope you all had a won­der­ful and way to ring in 2012. Me? I went to bed at 8:00pm because I had to work at 5:00 am New Year’s Day. I’m not sure if I’m more both­ered by the fact that I missed out on a par­ty, or the fact that it did­n’t both­er me to miss a par­ty. Get­ting old is hell, folks.

Now for my New Year’s memory:

I come from a big Irish fam­i­ly. Both of my par­ents came from big Irish fam­i­lies as well, so that makes my big fam­i­ly even big­ger. I loved it.

Every New Year’s Eve, my par­ents would pile all sev­en of us kids into our big wood-pan­eled sta­tion wag­on, and head up to my uncle’s house in a lit­tle Wyoming town where every­one knows every­one else. I think we dou­bled the town’s pop­u­la­tion by the time all the aunts, uncles, and cousins filed in.

Uncle Joe’s house would be filled with the scent of can­dy thanks to huge pots on the stove full of  home­made salt­wa­ter taffy. Then we’d all sit around the table (tables, there were dozens of us there) and each pull our own taffy. Now, most taffy gets pulled by machine. This is because you have to pull it when it’s hot. Blis­ter­ing hot. And it takes a long time and con­sid­er­able fin­ger strength to pull the taffy into man­age­able con­sis­ten­cy. Need­less to say, we young­sters weren’t the best pullers, but we were by far the best eaters.

But it’s fun. And deli­cious. And it keeps a gag­gle of kids busy for hours. (The recipe for home­made taffy is right here, if you’re so inclined.)

Then we’d wait up til mid­night and ring in the new year on my uncle’s huge porch, with noise­mak­ers and pots and spoons.

The more I think about it, the more I won­der why that lit­tle town kept allow­ing us back every year.

Then Uncle Joe would wake us all up at six in the morn­ing with the fol­low­ing song blar­ing at top volume:

Seri­ous­ly, I love my family.

Okay, that’s it for me. I hope you enjoy my lit­tle romp through mem­o­ry lane! If you click on the “con­tin­ue read­ing” link below, you’ll see the list of blogs for you to vis­it. Com­ment here with your email address to be entered into the grand prize draw­ing. I’ll choose one com­menter to win their choice of my dig­i­tal backlist.


54 thoughts on “Happy New Year!”

  1. Thank you for the great contest.

    I hope you have a hap­py and pros­per­ous new year.

    orelukjp0 at gmail dot com

    Reply

  3. Most of my New Year’s have been spent with my fam­i­ly. Lots of times we don’t do any­thing but it’s great to be with them.
    sstrode at scrtc dot com 

    Reply

  4. Usu­aly spend some time with my fam­i­ly. Would love to trav­el one year and ring in the New Year on a beach.
    linze_e at hotmail.com

    Reply

  5. I don’t have a mem­o­rable time to talk about, because for the most part every NYE I have spent with fam­i­ly, not that that isn’t mem­o­rable, real­ly good times, I’ve nev­er done any­thing wacky or crazy dur­ing the NYE celebrations 🙂 

    Reply

  6. Watch­ing the lit­tle ones stay up to ring in the New Year has always been my favorite. 

    lmjtgm(at)gmail.com

    Reply

  7. Yuum­m­m­mm, home­made taffy. We eats lots of good­ies and watch movies. When I was a kid, the PBS chan­nel would show the ear­ly musi­cals or the fun­ny Cary Grant movies which we would enjoy (once a year). 

    acm05atjuno.com

    Reply

  8. I think that kind of sounds like fun! My New Years Eves are pret­ty qui­et, just stay home and cel­e­brate with family 

    Thanks for the giveaway 

    ringpop2010 at gmail dot com 

    Reply

  9. Thanks for shar­ing your mem­o­ry and for the give­away. Mine is when I was in the Navy and we had a huge par­ty before we shipped out to Iraq
    ter­es­sao­liv­er at gmail dot com 

    Reply

  11. Uncle Joe would nev­er have sur­vived my fam­i­ly, LOL!!! Bless the man for hav­ing the courage to do that. I come from a big fam­i­ly too, 6 kids, 5 girls and 1 boy 😉 Our hol­i­days were a par­ty of our own. richnkathy718 (at) msn (dot) com 

    Reply

    1. Kathryn, we had six girls and one boy. I’m SURE they kept try­ing for anoth­er boy. 

      What fun. Now we have all these built in best friends as adults, right? 

      Reply

  12. I love being able to kiss my hus­band when the ball drops.. As long as we are still togeth­er kiss­ing when that ball goes down I know I am going to have yet anoth­er great year!! 

    Hap­py New Year 

    Dprissypunk(at)gmail(dot)com

    Reply

  13. Any new year spent with fam­i­ly or friends is the best. ones with­out res­o­lu­tions are just cake.
    Jennifer
    woca­world @ gmail.com

    Reply

  16. I usu­al­ly have great time at new year’s eve, and I remem­ber of my best one: it was when I stayed up with my first boyfriend who kissed my for the very first time at mid­night 🙂 It’s a nice memory 🙂 

    Hap­py new year!
    mikki-mano@hotmail.com

    Reply

  18. What a won­der­ful mem­o­ry, Alan­na. Lots of great mem­o­ry days with my fam­i­ly this time of year.

    caity_mack at yahoo dot com

    Reply

  19. i used to baby sit all the kid when i was younger than as i turn 18 i served te drinks and kept the keys
    deis the blonde2msn.com

    Reply

  20. I always love spend­ing hol­i­days (no mat­ter which ones) with the fam­i­ly. This year it was my sis­ter and 2 of her kids, watch­ing a zom­bie marathon on TV. Goofy & fun.
    June
    manning_j2004 at yahoo dot com 

    Reply

  21. Well my birth­days New Years eve so I could tell tons of sto­ries from that! LOL But one of my most mem­o­rable would prob­a­bly have to be last year just for how fun­ny it was. My friend was 9months preg­nant. Due any time and she decid­ed that she want­ed to play ‘Just Dance’ on my wii. So she seri­ous­ly got into it. It was insane watch­ing her dance with her big bel­ly. I have it on video. Prob­a­bly the fun­ni­est thing I’ve ever seen. 🙂 Thanks!
    ‑Amber
    goodblinknpark@yahoo.com

    Reply

  22. It sounds like you had a great fam­i­ly expe­ri­ence grow­ing up =) 

    I have nev­er been one to stay awake to bring in the New Year — but when I was 21 years old, my best friend drug me out with her hus­band and friends to a pub to a New Year’s Eve par­ty that was real­ly quite fun, so I’d have to choose that one, since it was my only expe­ri­ence *chuck­le*

    Thank you for par­tic­i­pat­ing in this hop and for the give­away chance! I love find­ing new to me authors =) 

    Hap­py New Year! 

    Gena Robert­son
    robertsongena@hotmail.com

    Reply

  26. thank you so much for being part of this give­away!!! Hap­py New Year! 

    yankeedragon4 at gmail dotcom 

    Reply

  27. This new years was my favorite. My fam­i­ly stayed home and watched movies. We had tons of fun! We ate snacks and toast­ed the new year. It was great! Thank you for shar­ing! Hap­py new year!
    shadowluvs2read(at)gmail(dot)com

    Reply

  28. I gen­er­al­ly like to play cards with my fam­i­ly & eat good food. Thanks for the giveaway! 

    geschu­mann at live dot com 

    Reply

  29. My mom would make shirley tem­ples and snacks for new years eve cel­e­bra­tion- loved it! 

    mconnolley(at)yahoo(dot)com

    Reply

  30. So mine starts off a lit­tle odd. I was work­ing as a wait­ress and I end­ed up work­ing a dou­ble shift from open to close with­out more than a two minute break peri­od­i­cal­ly. I was pret­ty mad about that because I’d sched­uled time off to be with my then boyfriend. Any­way so I worked all day and while the tips were great the peo­ple not so much, espe­cial­ly after about 9. So any­way we closed ear­ly that night and I got how around 11pm. I took a show­er and climbed into bed and just as I was falling asleep my phone rings. I’m cussing up a storm and ques­tion­ing the parent­age of the per­son on the oth­er end and it turns out it’s the boyfriend. He waits for my lit­tle rant to end and then before I can start up again blurts out “Will you mar­ry me.” I’m so tired my brain does­n’t seem to under­stand him and I go “what?” so he polite­ly repeats him­self and then tells me to get my ass out­side. I dropped my phone and ran out the front door to him stand­ing there with two dozen of my favorite flow­ers on one knee 🙂 Best New Year’s EVER! We’ll have been mar­ried three years this may. I don’t know if we kissed in time to ring in the new year but it was still pret­ty epic. 

    a_breen87@yahoo(dot)com

    Reply

  33. Thanks for the great mem­o­ry. My favorite NYE mem­o­ry is the one I spend with my now hus­band. We went out with my best friend and her (then) hus­band. It was hor­ri­ble. They fought the whole night but at one point dur­ing all that crazi­ness he leaned over and told me that he loved me.
    Thanks for the great giveaway! 

    areeths at new dot rr dot com 

    Reply

  34. What a ter­rf­ic sto­ry! Sounds like fun. My Dad’s fam­i­ly was like that, big and fun, but we did­n’t live near them so New Year’s was boring. 

    dox­is­r­cool at aol dot com 

    Reply

  36. YUM…Thanks for shar­ing your mem­o­ry of a big Irish fam­i­ly and salt­wa­ter taffy. 

    Cheers,
    catherinelee100[at]gmail[dot]com
    @capefearlibn

    Reply

  38. Thank you so much for tak­ing part in this fun Blog Hop! Great give­away and Hap­py New Year Too you!
    Latisha D
    tishajean@ charter.net

    Reply

  40. What a great and FUN memory…I LOVE taffy! For NYE we usu­al­ly spend the evening inside with fam­i­ly and friends, lots of good eats…playing cards (pok­er) and lis­ten­ing to music until the bal­l’s about to drop. Then the wine is poured, toasts made, kiss­es shared…and then the par­ty usu­al­ly con­tin­ues for a lit­tle while longer. Those that drank a lit­tle too much, or came with­out a des­ig­nat­ed dri­ver snug­gle in for the night…that’s just how we play. Bet­ter safe than sor­ry. 🙂 Hap­py 2012! 

    barbbattaglia@yahoo.com

    Reply

  41. Favorite mem­o­ry was 2 years ago watch­ing grand­chil­dren run around out­side in pyja­mas and snow­boots with sparklers in their hands to cel­e­brate the new year. 

    Reply

  42. Thanks for shar­ing. Mine are usu­al­ly spent at home, but my daugh­ter and I went out this year. 

    ainfinger@comcastDOTnet

    Reply

  43. My favorite new years was when I had a fun and crazy par­ty with friends last year, the cham­pagne was lit­er­al­ly flow­ing every­where since one of my friends tried to make a cham­pagne foun­tain but it turned into a riv­er instead! 

    lilazncutie1215[at]yahoo[dot]com

    Reply

  45. It’s not real­ly a “mem­o­ry,” but it’s a tra­di­tion that I still fol­low from back in my home coun­try of Brazil. For New Years, the col­or of your cloth­ing rep­re­sents what you want for the new year. For exam­ple, many Brazil­ians wear white for peace and inner calm, but you see a few wear­ing red for pas­sion or pink for love, some wear green in hopes of earn­ing more that year as well. Every year i’m excit­ed to see what col­ors peo­ple decide to wear on New Years, and I love get­ting togeth­er at the end of the year to see if their wish­es came true. n.dematos@gmail.com

    Reply

  46. wha­ta cool mem­o­ry i stay at home and veg and watch hor­ror flick­es we real­lyd ontd o much for the holiday 

    tyf or the chance 

    mortalsinn(AT)yahoo(DOT)com

    Reply

  47. What a great sto­ry!! Thanks for the recipe!! And I love that song! Brings back mem­o­ries of play­ing it for four years in our march­ing band way back when!! 😉 

    Hap­py New Year to you and yours! 

    thewil­dt­wo @ sbc­glob­al (dot) net 

    Reply

  49. My best NYE — We had a par­ty for our friends and fam­i­ly. We could see the high school fire­works from our back­yard. We all had a great time being togeth­er. Almost all the food was gone and the drinks…well there weren’t any left..lol Those who need­ed to spend the night found a piece of floor and blan­kets and we had break­fast the next morning…some not so much LOL 

    Great Blog Hop. Hope you will blog at KP sometime. 

    Mary Kei­th
    mary@keithpublications.come http://www.keithpublications.com

    Reply

  53. My favorite new year’s eve mem­o­ry is from my child­hood, when my par­ents took my sis­ter and me to the cap­i­tal just to see the fire­work. I was so hap­py — I had­n’t trav­eled that much before and we all liked it.
    Thanks for the give­away and hap­py new year!
    creature-in-night@hotmail.com

    Reply

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