The Zoos Shave All the Animals

Happy New Years everyone. I hope 2006 treats you nicely. Apparently the world will end this year. *Apparently*

Anyway, I was thinking about the past yesterday and where I've spent New Years since the turn of the millennium (is it one 'n' or two?).

It actually took me quite a while to remember what happened.

But as Beyonce famously said, "Break it down, y'all!"


2000:
Location - Church
Present - EVERYONE.

This was fantastic. The church basically put on a celebration eve of dance/drama/music/food and then we had a disco to round off a great evening. One of the best New Years I've been to. Maybe the church wanted to all get together in one building, just in case everyone was raptured or if the millennium bug thing happened, at least we'd all die together.

As Maria would say. 'Am just saying!'


2001:
Location - Garf & Becks
Present - EVERYONE (under 30 I guess)

This was great as well. I remember running outside with everyone at 12am on to a muddle field where I stood in a puddle of water or mud. We watched the fireworks from the center and it was cool. Also, I think this was the first year we all did the okekoki.


2002:
Location - Somewhere in Bradley Stoke (honestly, it was someone's house from JCUK who's name I think may have been Andy.)
Present - 'Andy', Adam, Me, T, Bruce, err... and about 4 others I think.

Pants. Pants. Pants. If you're gonna have a New Years celebration, you need more than 10 people present. The really, really, really sad thing is that I think we ended up playing monopoly at one point. That is how much it sucked. I was praying for 12am. The funny thing is that this was the night we *almost* learnt how to play mafia. Unfortunately, 'Andy' was about as good as explaining it as the party was. We did however, uphold the now traditional okekoki.


2003:
Location - Simon & Jane's
Present - Everyone under the age of 30 (just)

We somehow managed to nab Si and Jane's for the evening (down to Shaneen and Jamie I imagine). I can't actually remember a lot about this except a lot of Playstation games were played (Weakest Link mainly). There was good food, but people seemed to just want to relax the new year in rather than dance. It wasn't a bad evening, but it wasn't the best. Again, we made a lot of noise outside at midnight and did the okekoki (wahey!)


2004:
Location - Nig and Est's
Present - Everyone from the previous year and some more
Theme (ohhh it's a Theme!) - Film stars

This was a gooooood evening. We had to act and dress like certain film stars. I was Mr Smith from Matrix. This required very little in the costume dept (all I needed was a suit with shades) and also required very little personality, which was fine. It was great watching people dress up and seeing who they attempted to come as. Also, the impersonations were pretty good. Special credit to T, who pulled off Jack Sparrow. And yeah, we did the OKEKOKI!


2005:
Location - Loz's
Present - Everyone from last year minus a few
Theme - Countries

We had to dress up in the way a stereotypical person from any country we chose would dress. I chose France so I looked French I guess... in Loz's striped top. lol. I was a bit disappointed in the turnout for this though. Everyone seemed a bit lethargic and people seemed to come in and out like... err... people coming in and out of a house. Also, everyone was spreadout around the house in different rooms meaning it was difficult to play games. I do remember having a great time dancing in the front room though. We changed it into a rave and just jumped up and down like loonies. 12am was good as well. We made the most racket we had ever made and, yes, you guessed it, we did the okekoki again.


2006:
Location - Nig & Est's
Present - Over 17's only, so all the youth (under 20's) decided to do there own thang, except 2 of them (Babz and Daz) who came. We also had the pleasure of having the Brummies down all the way from London, Scotland and Birmingham, which was nice. And Mario turned up as well, which was great! Except during the "balloon game".
Theme - Smart (Suits for men, Dresses for ladies)

We had a bit of alcohol present at this one meaning it made for a bit of an interesting evening with regards to... flirting. I didn't have any, cos I was driving. Alright, it wasn't because I was driving, it's because I don't drink. But it was a great evening. I'm not sure what it made it so good. Whether it was the games we played, or the fact that almost everyone at one time or another was up on the dance floor, I don't know. 8-11:30 wizzed by and so did 12am-3am. We played the X-Factor game after 12 and Loz absolutely trashed me pretty much everytime. However, during one of the turns, someone was touching my back and trying to give me a wedgy. Drinkers, eh! lol.

So there's my 6 year catch up. If you got this far, congratulation.

Bring on next year! T and Lis's anyone? ;)