‘For this one magical night it’s about getting another chance, to do more, to give more, to love more: that is what new years is all about- that, and a good party’.

That’s the sound-bite for the latest Hollywood blockbuster, ‘New Years Eve’ which looks set to ruin our New Year’s Eve experience for years to come with visions of what could have been, if only we were beautiful, wealthy and lived in New York. (Much like Valentine’s Day was a cruel treat for potential couples everywhere last year: come on, what date did you have that would have been better than Bradley Cooper or Jessica Alba?)

But despite this prevision of comparative doom… what are we getting up to on New Years Eve? The night when clubs charge astronomical fees for awesome nights; when fireworks paint the sky over London Southbank; and when champagne is definitely the new tequila. To that end I have sought out the stories of our most beloved fellow students whose exploits or lack of are the real story of New Years Eve, midnight kisses and all..

The One Who Didn’t Make it to Midnight

I was the one who didn’t manage to see in the new year. It began civilized; I had mulled wine and nibbles with a friend from school whilst we waited for my other friend to turn up. We’d decided on a nice quiet new years eve at our local seeing as everyone was either away or with family. However, when said friend arrived, with them came vodka and a lot of whiskey. From that point, my night went downhill. I made it to the pub but after shots, throwing up in the beer garden and breaking a shelf in the toilet, (I am told at this point I whispered ‘oh no!’ and tried to hide in a cubicle), I got taken home. At half ten. To my Christian parents, who have never seen me drunk before. I woke up at 5am cuddling the toilet.

Anonymous

The Londoner

As many a Londoner will tell you, the fireworks that light up the Southbank are incredible and a worthy way to see in the New Years; but what they won’t mention is the six hour wait in the freezing cold as you jostle for a place on a nearby bridge, warding off the killer winds which sweep down the Thames and the droves of snap-happy tourists keen to nick your spot. So, this New Years I decided to do it the civilized way: dinner with friends at a house in Westminster tall enough to afford us a perfect view of the fireworks from the roof once the clock struck midnight. And until midnight? A pool table and a plentiful supply of wine kept us thoroughly entertained. New Years didn’t get messy; but it was a great evening and I was happy to be seeing in 2012 with old friends, catching up a term’s worth of conversation and having my butt kicked at pool. It was certainly a night to remember and I hope that it is a sign of things to come: if 2012 is anything like as chilled out as new years eve, then I’ll be one happy student.

Viccy Ibbett

The Country Boy

We country-folk find it difficult to get out to all of your fancy London night clubs and thus an alternative method of getting truly mapped at New Years is to perform a house invasion. This year we arrived at the designated person’s house with enough alcohol each to leave us in hospital with a reasonably serious coma but nonetheless still had the intention of drinking every drop. The main activity of the night was drinking games which included the regular card games and culminated in a game entitled ‘Doggy Do’ of which the aim was to force a plastic dog to defecate by squeezing its lead. 

After these various activities for forcing alcohol into our respective systems mania ensued and ultimately, the next thing I personally remember is waking up in a shredded paper table cloth on a stone kitchen floor wearing a shirt that I hadn’t yet realised wasn’t mine after being repeatedly shot in the face by a Nerf gun. The rest of New Years Day was spent with my head in my hands as I was dragged out to a family meal in a country pub where I watched as a roast dinner was placed in front of me and then taken away, completely uneaten, half an hour later. Overall, the moments of this New Years Eve that I remember will certainly be difficult to forget.

Anonymous

The Girly Night In

What better way to pay tribute to the end of 2011 than a night gossiping with the girlies over glasses of champagne, reminiscing about good times spent together during our last year at school and sharing equally embarrassing stories from our time at university. It was the first New Year’s I’ve spent away from home and the traditional family celebrations of much singing, eating and Wii-playing but watching Big Ben strike midnight in glorious HD surrounded by some of my closest friends was an equally special and enjoyable start to the new year. Our goal was not to get smashed or wasted, we wanted to remember the start of 2012 and make this year a year to remember rather than a night to forget! We watched the fireworks and sang Auld Lang’s Syne under guidance from Jake Humphrey with stomachs full of hand-made sushi, a wonderful home-made gingerbread house and several glasses of champagne. In comparison to other nights it was a quiet one, but I wouldn’t have changed it for the world. Bring on 2012!

Cara Battle

The House Party

I’ve had a romantic view of the New Year ever since I was fifteen, when I was finally released from the clutches of my parents into a booze-ridden teenage party. Idealising New Years is not healthy; it has raised my expectations to such a height that I’m almost always disappointed when the real deal comes around. I’m not being picky. I only ask that by midnight I share a kiss with a devilishly handsome man with a nice personality to match, to get tipsy without those alarming memory losses, and to party. Hard. The reality of my New Years for 2012 was somewhat different.

Traditionally (well, ever since two years ago,) I have visited my brother in Newport, Wales to ring in the New Year. My final day of 2011 commenced with driving the two or so hours in dark, wet conditions whilst listening to Beyonce on repeat, and to my brother steadily downing cup after cup of cider. Having somehow arrived in Wales and following the lengthy affair of applying red lipstick without looking like The Joker, we started the process conventionally known as the ‘Pre lash.’ That’s probably where I went wrong in all fairness. I know I’m an embarrassing drunk; it’s an accepted fact for all who know me, and so arriving at the house party full of people I didn’t really know couldn’t have led to a good first impression. It didn’t. By 11pm people were handing me cups of ‘Vimto’ to drink, and slices of bread to ‘soak up the rum,’ (of which I found slices discarded in unlikely places around the house the day after, the bath for example.) However by midnight I was okay. And yes, I did get my kiss. The catch? Unfortunately he was gay. Bummer.

The next few hours were taken up with clubbing, dancing, and trying and failing to send New Years texts to my friends. I got home in the early hours of 2012, exhausted, hungry, and feeling rougher than sandpaper. Still, despite my embarrassing antics, the lipstick which was inevitably all over my face come morning, and my avoidance of the midnight kisser; 2012 started bloody brilliant.

Vickie Morrish

So, you’ve made it through Michaelmas unscathed and alive (albeit broke). You have somehow come up against library all-nighters, endured painful critical reading, held up the stamina for daily lab sessions, and yes, you’ve won. Congratulations, you deserve something shiny, or at the very least a first in collections, but for now the prize manifests itself in the Christmas Vac. 

I’ve experienced 19 Christmases in my lifetime, and so I’d deem myself relatively skilled at the festive season. For example, I know the correct order to ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas,’ including number ten, where the ten lords-a-leaping are disappointingly forgotten by many a pub-quizzer. I’ve more or less perfected my present buying strategies (amazon, gift-wrapping all you ‘add to basket’ so as to save unnecessary effort, of course). I’ve even, rather unfortunately, been a first hand witness to what happens when eggnog goes wrong. However, little did I know that eight family-free weeks at Uni would lull me into a false sense of parentless security come Christmas time. I was ignorant to the Darwinesque ‘survival of the fittest’ that would come from close proximity to those I share my DNA with. For me, like many households across Britain, the battle of the University Student is fully underway, and this time, it’s personal.

Christmas at the tender age of say, eight, we can look back upon now with a certain nostalgia. Gone are the days when we woke our parents up at 6 o’clock in the morning for stocking unwrapping, arguing that 6am is a perfectly satisfactory, ‘sociable’ time for present opening, and comparing it to [insert any fictional child’s name] who wakes her parents up at 5.30am so they should count themselves lucky, really. Gone is our belief in a curvaceous old man dressed in red who, for some strange reason, made it his mission every year to hand out presents to the 2.2 billion children in the world. Further still, we did not even think of questioning how Mr. Claus managed to find the time, stomach capacity, and sobriety to eat copious amounts of mince pies and drink cup after cup of sherry and still make the rounds. 

Yes, Christmas as a kid was debatably the best time of the year (birthdays were also held in equally high esteem), and the 12 days of Christmas, that is, the days between Christmas day and the 5^th of January, were prime present exploration time/fun family ‘bonding’ time. Our close family friends and relatives would pop over amid our present playing to tell us ‘how much we’d grown,’ (‘none, I’m the same height you last saw me, Nan,’) and would desperately try to fool us into thinking they’d ‘got your nose’. We tolerated our relatives because our parents told us to, and we tolerated our parents because puberty hadn’t kicked in. We also had the latest toy/video game from the Argos catalogue to distance us from reality.

Nowadays, some of the magic of Santa still lives on through the efforts of our parents. Christmas day is generally successful; Mum’s caved in and finally realised the necessity of a PlayStation 3, a new puppy, GHD’s or whatever else we couldn’t afford without our parents’ generosity. We can tolerate board games and family movie time on the big day itself, the three hour Monopoly game becoming more and more ruthlessly competitive. However, it’s the time after Christmas day which necessitates that students across Britain fine tune their family coping mechanisms.

The twelve days of Christmas is the time when the family friends and elderly relatives we’ve successfully avoided since last Yule Tide come back into our lives. It is also the period where we realise board games are aptly named, the time where we overdose on turkey pie, turkey sandwiches, and turkey curry, and the period where our parents’ nagging really start to remind us how much we miss Uni. Some words of advice, then, on how to survive the family-filled break between Christmas and Uni.

1)    Take advantage of as much free food and drink you can. I’m not saying wait until your parents aren’t looking and quickly empty the fridge, but what I am saying is that when your parents offer you wine, or seconds for meals, you should indulge (with moderation…). Christmas is the one time of the year where you can openly be a glutton without judgement or guilt, and without spending your cherished student loan. Food and drink can also allow you to become slightly immune to any questions disguised as insults by interrogating relatives. For example:

Offensive relative (probably grandparent): “You’re 20 next month dear, isn’t it time you started to settle down a bit. Brian and I were married when we were your age.”

You: “Oh, you’re so funny, here, more wine?”

This tactic works with all subjects, from your relationship status, political beliefs or religion to those concerning your questionable choice of hair colour.

2)    Stay out of the kitchen during meal preparation. Unless you’re the one cooking, just avoid this danger zone at all times. You won’t win against the parent: it’s a given fact; this is their turf. Even if you’re just going in for a drink, you will undoubtedly be doing something wrong and be blamed for when any food item/items burn, regardless of your intervention.

3)    Invite a friend over. Strength in numbers: the old cliché, but here it really does work. Not only will a friend not nag at you for leaving dirty dishes in your room, but you can actually have genuine fun in the comfort of your own home. I’m serious. A sparkly new friend to dinner can also distract attention away from you, allowing the floor to open up new questions aimed at your guest. Preferably pick someone self-absorbed, who will need less prompting when conversation turns to them.

 4)    Go out. You’re home, so go visit old school friends you’ve neglected for a month or two. And Facebook chat doesn’t count for a ‘reunion.’ Make sure you have some killer New Year’s plans since staying cooped up with the close family as you ring in 2012 is never a good plan (unless you’re ridiculously family tolerant, in which case, go ahead.).

5)    Have alone time. When times get tense with Mum or your siblings are grinding at your nerves for no apparent reason, sometimes you just need to bask in nothingness, or spend some quality time with your favourite TV series. If you can’t get away from the chaos, suddenly acquire an illness which, while having no obvious physical symptoms, requires copious bed rest. This way, you’ll get space whilst managing to elicit some sympathy from the rest of the household. Score. And if you’re not very capable at ‘catching’ bizarre illnesses, or are a highly flawed dramatist, then do as a third year English student does and “develop a reputation as the ‘unsociable one:’ that way people don’t think you’re being abnormally rude when you hide in your room.”

6)    Remind yourself it’s only for a short time. So what are you doing being so grumpy? In a few weeks time you’re going to be back in the Oxford bubble, back to the essay crises and the formal halls. Put a little effort in for the family; let the toddler hobble through your legs, tell your loopy Grandma that yes, all your talents are from her, maybe even tolerate and entertain your parents. You never know, you might just find yourself enjoying home life in return (even if it’s just a little bit). Oh, and that expensive Canon camera you wanted for you birthday – you might just get it.