New Year's Eve 2010 - Hokiness Maximus

Hello once again!
Still getting the hang of blogging and still relying on good ol Mama Kat to help nudge me along through her Writer's Workshop series.

I am choosing this week the following prompt:

2.) If the way you spent your New Year’s Eve is any indication of how the rest of the year will go, how would you say your future is looking right about now?

For the past few years for the New Years holiday, we have been spending a four day weekend with some of my husband’s family in Chincoteague Island, Va. If you’ve ever been there in the summertime, you know it is a beautiful place to be. In the winter time? Not a heckuva lot going on. Not a lot shops open, or restaurants, or people around. I almost feel like I am going on a quiet monk-like retreat when we go on this trip.

We have dinner New Year’s Eve at one of the few places open in town, Bill’s Seafood Restaurant, where they make up a lovely assortment of holiday cocktails. I did not try all of these!

Eggnog Martini (tastes much better than it looks!)

This year, something new was actually taking place on the island. Something the few locals and year-rounders were all abuzz about. What was it? I asked around and found out.

And so it was that just before midnight, we all walked over to the waterfront public park off of Main Street for the First Annual Horseshoe Drop. Yep, a horse shoe drop. Who needs a stinkin’ ball? High atop a flagpole waiting to be lowered, was an illuminated giant horseshoe, made from many many strings of lights and chickenwire, I suspect.

As we waited for the count down, a parade of people wearing costumes, crazy hats and blowing noisemakers began around the public square. These two characters led the charge.

All the hoopin’ and hollerin’ at midnight over a chickenwire covered illuminated horseshoe descending its way down the flagpole just made me laugh and smile. I soaked in the crowd. I am big on cheesy events and hokiness and this, to me, was a good way to start the year. Perhaps it will be a lucky one after all.

The next day, we were back walking at the beach on a quiet, foggy day.The Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge is stunning in the summer time. I learned that it is stunning even in the starkness of January.

If 2011 is a year of laughing with family, even over happenings that ooze hokiness, then it is going to be a good year indeed.

Stop by MamaKatsLosingIt to read what others are saying about how they showed 2010 out the door and welcomed in 2011.