Savoring the New Year

As I was beginning work on Friday morning January 1^st, many of you were counting down the final seconds of 2015. Old news for us as Andrea and I had celebrated (though in our sleep) way back while your bean dip was still cooling in the fridge.

Not that the event makes much of a stir over here in Ethiopia where they flip their calendars on the morning of Sept 11 every year, but as with most holidays Andrea and I try to do something "fun" or incorporate some reminder of home. If you ask me what things I most associate with a New Year's Eve celebration, the answers that first pop into my head are quite unusual. It's not the staying up late and watching the Times Square ball drop non-climatically an hour early for us in the Central Time Zone. It's not being with good friends, as I think last year was one of the only times I can remember ringing it in in such company. It's not even the ugly "sombrero" chips and dip tray my family breaks out on only this occasion.

No, the first things I think of are "The Blues Brothers movie" and a "cheese and sausage tray." Once upon a time, I remember my family watching the Blues Brothers movie on New Year's Eve. Then the next year, seeing that it wasn't programmed to be showing, we went to the local Blockbuster (remember those?) and rented it. And thus the association stuck in my mind. Well, we don't own the blues brothers movie over here in Ethiopia, so the closest I could get was in listening to the songs "Rawhide" and "Sweet Home Chicago." A poor substitution I know, I had to imagine Princess Lea unleashing her spray of bullets in the sewer followed by the nearly 3,000 Chicago PD cars piling up in the ridiculous final car chase. Sad.

 And so to make up for dropping the ball on the movie, I certainly enjoyed the cheese and sausage tray to the hilt this year, thanks to a summer sausage "log" we bought last March and the Wisconsin straight-from-the-factory blocks of cheese I carried back when I was last in the States. When combined with some crackers bought here in country, we had ourselves a true New Year's Day treat! And, trust me, things like this just taste that much better over here!