Each year, as the final day of the final month comes to a close, my family sits in the living room awkwardly and silently for hours before the ball slowly crouches to the ground.

My dad is determined to get the family to spend some quality, or at least civilized, time together. So we put on a movie that nobody pays full attention to and I scribble furiously in my sketchbook to at least have proof of completing something this year. Brothers float up and down the stairs, from video games to being with the family again when they can sneak unseen by our father who art on the couch.

Finally, the time comes to drink some sparkling cider -- the time of this activity varies upon when our newborn kitten like yowling for the sweet nectar becomes too much for our father and he doles it out cautiously. We get one glass each, savoring each drop like the blood of Christ. But one glass of sparkling cider? He may as well impart into our palms a single cheddar Pringle before bowing slightly and throwing the full can away. How can anyone drink one glass of sparkling cider?

Back to the couch, or the floor if the couch is full of manspreading and cats. We continue to sit in stiff and bulky silence until the countdown begins. We nod concededly as the ball inches toward the TEN, NINE, EIGHT!

.....TWO, ONE!

A half-hearted bumbling, "yay." is emitted from each of us. We are the physical embodiment of "okie dokie then". We head to bed.

A New Year's Tradition.