New Year's Rockin' Eve

There was a time in our lives when New Year's Eve meant glowsticks, tie dyes and epic Phish concerts - sometimes running all night - but those days are long gone.

Or so I thought.

I present, The Ninja Family New Year's Rockin' Eve 2014:

Yes, those are both of our children, rocking out to Phish live, via the wonders of the Intertubes.   And that was the mellow moment.  The rest of the evening was full of family glowstick drum circles...

... and dance parties - during which Edie would spin like a veteran Deadhead and Finn would approach and kindly offer, "Shall we dance?", which was my cue to pick him up and throw him onto the couch.

While we fully expected them to immediately lose interest in their parents' weird hippie obsession, Edie made it through the second set and Finn made it the distance, through East Coast New Year's and to the encore.  And he wasn't fakin' it.  I mean, look at this face!

As the night was winding down and Finn and I were laughing and messing each other's hair to our favorite mangled Phish lyrics ("I saw you with a chicken sub in your hair!"), I realized that this was what it was all about.  Being able to share an experience like this - one that was so formative for their mom and me, and such a part of our lives for so long - is transcendent.  Even if they were sober like a couple of losers.

One of these days, these guys are going to grow up, hop into a Virgin Galactic shuttle and head off to a Phish show on Mars for New Year's Eve, ditching us to watch alone on our couch (which will probably be made with GMO's; stupid future), but until then, I'm going to savor every New Year's Eve we have together.  We're going to buy as many glowsticks as we can afford, watch us some serious Phish, and turn our TV room into a crazy "mush pot," as Finn would put it.

Shall we dance?