Starting New Year's With a Band !

The weather here has been considerably fairer than in parts of the sunny south and the dollar here has been considerably weaker than in all of the sunny south. It behooved us (I don't know exactly what it means but I like the word behooved) to scrub our thoughts of heading through heavy floodwaters, snow, ice, and tornados toward our targets of Oklahoma and Arizona. Instead, we remained north of the border where I sit at this very moment.

New Year's Eve was busy. We had a taco lunch followed by a trip to Service Ontario, then the annual celebration of the trading of vehicles (this time, 2000 Caravan to us, 2010 Hyundai to my son). This event is not to be confused with Festivus (Dec. 23rd), airing of grievances, and, demonstrations of feats of strength despite the fact that some of both were involved in this activity.

I had purchased tickets to the local Best Western Hotel's grand ballroom function for the evening.  It was highly recommended as the place to go in our small town. There was to be a live band experience, amazing food, champagne at midnight, and party favours. We got a drive to the venue and  planned to get the "red nose" volunteers to pick us up lest we imbibed.

As soon as we entered, we were dazzled by the decor, the ambiance, and the artistic arrangements of food on numerous hot tables. I felt it would be rude to take photos as I drooled over the magnificently displayed offerings, so I refrained. There was a freshly roasted whole pig and a huge beef roast being served by one chef, and a pasta chef with an array of seafood stood at another table. There was a pineapple mountain with skewers of jumbo shrimp, lobster halves, salads, cheeses, fruit, another hot table with vegetables, and a bread table. The presentation rivalled that of any resort or cruise ship.

We were seated at a table for six. It contained evidence of what was just a few hours ahead, hats, crowns, horns, and beads. After we ate our main course, we ventured into a hallway area which contained desserts, a chocolate fountain and an ice sculpture in celebration of the year to come.

After dinner we danced to the music of The Royals, a local sixteen piece concert band.

http://www.theconcertbandofcobourg.com/?page_id=3 (copy and paste if link doesn't work).

They were excellent. Many people danced, although I must say I might have preferred some additional music choices of a more modern nature (not all from the thirties, forties, and fifties).

We observed that some of the people were disappearing. I suppose they had already surpassed their limit of activity and wakefulness. At midnight, we received champagne for toasting, balloons were dropped,and the band serenaded us with several versions of Auld Lang Syne.

It was a lovely evening. How fortunate we are to be able to have such an experience in town. After partaking in a small midnight snack table, we decided to walk home and burn off a few extra calories. We passed the downstairs venue which was still rocking! Perhaps next year?

After a  brisk walk home, through a gentle dusting of snow, we were wide awake, but eventually were able to settle down to sleep.