What are you doing New Year's, New Year's Eve?

I don't think I ever really liked New Year's Eve. I'm not exactly sure why. I've tried to figure it out over the years but I've never been able to get to the bottom of it.
I sigh a sigh of relief when the day is over.
I don't like the countdown to midnight.
I don't like the hugging and kissing. Not that I don't like hugging and kissing at other appropriate times; I just don't like the way it is done before and after midnight on New Year's Eve. It's much too staged and not what I consider the normal or spontaneous expression of affection.
There are also way too many other expectations attached to New Year's Eve.
When you are a kid, you expect to stay awake until midnight, even if you are very tired and would rather go to sleep. You might be exhausted but you just stay awake anyway to prove that you can stick it out.
When you are an adolescent, you expect to be invited to a teenage party. If- God forbid- you haven't received the coveted invitation, you are mortified. And never in a million years would you let on that you were home all night with Mom & Dad.
When you reach "dating age", you expect to have a date for New Year's Eve. If it gets too close to New Year's Eve and you haven't yet been invited out for this very special date night, you begin to panic. Apparently, it is the disgrace of the century not to have a date for New Year's Eve. In fact not only are you expected to have one invitation but rather you are expected to have a "thousand invitations" :

"Maybe I'm crazy to suppose

I'd ever be the one you chose

Out of the thousand invitations you'd receive"

Even the song tells you what to expect for New Year's Eve. Could all these expectations be the reason that I don't like New Year's Eve? Or, is it something else altogether. Could it be that I have to say "good-bye" to the old year? Typically I hate to say, "Good Bye".
Or could it be fear of the unknown? Who knows what lies in the year ahead? "Only a fool would say".
Could it be the outrageous, over the top celebration and the confetti, balloons and noisemakers? Sometimes it seems incongruous to celebrate in such an extreme manner when life might be falling apart around us or the reality we currently face in our lives doesn't match this crazy carnival.
I think I could tell you what I was doing and who I was with every single New Year's Eve from the time I was an adolescent. And I wonder, what is it about New Year's Eve that warrant this type of memory?

Photo of Merrilee & my Dad was taken Dec. 31, 2009 at our home.
Mary Beth