Christmas had just ended, and we were already preparing for New Year's Eve. I had never been allowed to stay up the whole night and watch the ball drop. I begged my mom and dad to allow me to be able to stay up.
"Please Mom? Please Dad? I've never seen the ball touch down for a new year. I want to soooo bad!! You gotta let me stay up!"
"Oh we do?" Dad asked with raised eyebrows.
"Well no, you don't have to, but it'd be nice! Come on, Isaac, Taylor, and Zac get to stay up!"
"I guess it's okay for you to be able to. I don't have a problem with it. Walker?"
"Sure, you think you can make it?" Dad asked me.
"Yes, times a billion!" I yelled. I was ecstatic, I'd finally get to see everything that I missed with the years past. During the next few days, I watched Mom and Dad call people to invite them over, I talked with my friends about what they were doing. They were all going to try to stay up, too.
It was finally December 31st. I had my camera with me, I wanted to take pictures of it so I could remember my first New Year's that I'd actually be awake for. That morning, I kept trying on different outfits. I wanted to look good when the years changed at the stroke of midnight.
During the day, everybody was busy, setting up food, cleaning the house, and keeping things under control. My job was to clean my part of my room and dust the basement furniture. Avery had to clean her side of the room and clean the downstairs windows. Mackie was too little to help. I was busy the whole day, helping with cleaning and setting out food.
Finally, at 6:00, company started to arrive. We invited our relatives on both sides of the family, and Mom and Dad invited some of their friends and their kids. I gave my camera to Mom, so she could take pictures for me. I remember eating all this good food and playing games in the basement, which was where the kids were supposed to stay. Around 9:00, we decided to play hide and seek. By we, I meant me, Taylor, Zac (Isaac thought he was too old to play), our cousins Jeff and Liz, who are a year older than Zac, our cousin Ryan, who was my age, and Lindsay, who was Taylor's age. Also, Madeline (in retrospect, she's not the Madeline in the song that my brothers wrote), who was a year older than me, and Jacob, who was a year younger than me. We played a few games. I was feeling a little sleepy, so in my hiding place, I shut my eyes for what I thought was a few minutes.
"What? What's going on? Stop it!" I said.
"Jessie, get up!" my older cousin Mike said. Mike was 17 at the time. I was 6. He's always been my favorite cousin, to this day.
"Did I miss New Year's?" I asked.
"No, it's 11:55," he said.
"Oh. Why didn't anyone find me?" I asked.
"They did. They tried to wake you up, but you wouldn't get up," he said.
"Oh," I said. I tried to get out, but I couldn't. Mike reached underneath the shelves in the bathroom and pulled me out. He picked me up.
"Lets hurry up, you don't want to miss it!" he said. While holding me, he ran up the stairs to the living room. I saw this big, lighted ball on the TV screen, heading towards the ground. When it hit, everybody cheered and yelled Happy New Year's.
"Happy New Year's, Jess!" he said. He kissed my cheek.
"Why did you do that?" I asked, wiping it off my cheek. Mike laughed.
"It's a tradition to kiss somebody at the stroke of twelve on New Year's," he said.
"Oh," I said. "Happy New Year's, Mike!" I said. I gave him a kiss on the cheek. He set me down on the couch and I said "Happy New Year" to a bunch of other people. Finally, I fell asleep on the couch. I woke up the next morning in my bed, wondering who brought me up to bed.
"Mom? Who took me upstairs last night?" I asked.
"Oh, your cousin Mike did," she said. "He really loves you a lot."
I grinned. A few days later, Mom took my film to the store and she got it developed for me. There were a bunch of pictures of the kids playing, but the last three pictures made me grin. They were of Mike kissing me Happy New Year's, me falling asleep and Mike holding me in his lap, and Mike carrying me upstairs to my bed. I still have those pictures, framed in my room. That was the story of my first "real" New Year's.
Chapter 3 - *not yet up*
Chapter 1 - Christmas
Hanson Tales
While We Grow
