I was playing D&D for the very first time, and I loved it. I feel the need to go out and buy many-sided dice, but I can't right now because if you spend money on New Year's Day your finances will trickle away from you for the rest of the year. Apparently.
not_him_again had found me a character picture of a halfling of indeterminate gender stroking a wolf. Our hosts had no wolf, but they had a golden retriever named Lady who obligingly flopped behind my chair for most of the evening. (Later our hostess caught me encouraging the dog to kiss me on the lips and informed me that she'd stopped doing that after discovering Lady with her head in the cat's litter tray.)After the serious gaming was done we finished the Cointreau, had a shot apiece of blueberry vodka, drank a bottle of Amarula Cream and half a bottle of Baileys and played Uno, which is much more fun when you're slightly hammered. At midnight we cracked open the fizzy white wine and went out into the garden, where we fired blanks from a replica .45 under cover of firework noise. Thus I began 2005 by going deaf in one ear for ten minutes.
We wished each other a Happy New Year and pecked one another politely on the cheek, and then
gray_matter threw up. So, er, Happy New Year! 