Now that Christmas celebrations are happily underway, there is the big crescendo of New Year's Eve to look forward to. Every year it seems that you have to have a plan for where, when and how you are going to have this biggest-of-all party. I used to believe it involved finding the largest party on offer as that was sure to be the place where everyone would be.

Weeks of deliberation would go into making sure we had chosen the hippest place but come 00:01 the party would quickly dissipate and we'd realise that it wasn't really that exciting a night after all. This then led to arguments, with all of us worried about why the party ended so quickly and wondering why it wasn't that good anyway. Sure, it happens sometimes that the planning of the party and the anticipation turns out to be more fun than the actual event, but this seemed to be becoming a consistent occurrence at every New Year's party.

The next year we decided to be revolutionary by not focusing on the build up and focusing more on why we wanted to celebrate. We reckoned that hopping from place to place was just chasing an unfulfilled dream that probably didn't exist anyway. This took the pressure off and we were relaxed enough to enjoy the countdown and continue in a buzzed-up mood as we were celebrating together - which we then realised was the whole point.