Thinking about New Year's Eve

Christmas dinner (menu and location) has been decided.
Cards have been sent.
Shopping is done.
Decorating is done.
Wrapping will be done when the last present gets here (Thursday, according to the USPS website)

Time to think about New Year's Eve. Ugh.

I don't like New Years Eve. (Which is probably why it seems to sneak up on me every year, I ignore it.)

If I had my way, New Year's would be celebrated with lunch on the day itself. Everyone would make extravagant predictions for the coming year, which would then be recorded and read out at the following New Year's Eve lunch. (The key word is extravagant - no predicting that you will buy a new car. More along the lines of  "I will have lunch with Bono and discuss why rainbows are such a popular motif on clothing for little girls.") 

I've had friends go to see the ball drop at Times Square in New York, and the stories they tell (pickpockets, standing for hours on end packed into an enormous crowd, wearing a Stadium Buddy, because you can't leave) all fill me with horror. And they actually go back. I can't imagine any concert being worth that.

Really, you can't even see the stage

I've always wanted to do the dinner and dancing all night, but the men I've dated have all been the kind for whom dancing is a punishment, with formal wear a close second. And New Year's, like Valentine's Day, does not seem to be a good night to go solo. 

Sleeping through it is not an option. My neighbors are going to explode enough fireworks to light up the ship channel. (I may have to sedate the cat.)

So I'm throwing it open. Any ideas?

So far I have:

• movie night (which leads to another problem - what is an appropriate New Year's eve movie?)
• buy some fireworks of my own and join the freezing people outside.
• bottle of champagne and popcorn.
• leave the country