Big Sky is the largest ski resort in the United States. It's an hour's drive north of Yellowstone National Park and 3 hours from Billings where Nash grew up. His family owns a rental condo there that can comfortably sleep 12 (and sometimes sleeps so many that people are relegated to the closet). For the past twenty-plus years, they've celebrated every New Year's Eve here. There are entries in the guestbook of tiny Nash finding a runaway snowball on the ski slopes and keeping it in the freezer as a pet. It's only my third New Years with their family, but I've already picked up a number of traditions - in my own family, New Year's Eve was never a big deal but here it's the party of the year.
This year saw the usual board games and the addition of Virtual Reality games thanks to Ralph's new Vive. Every time you walked upstairs, you would see someone waving their arms around with the goggles over their eyes.
We also did a spin on Pictionary where everyone wrote their own prompts down and drew from a bowl. The person who guessed correctly got the slip of paper as a point. I thought it was really fun, and drew clues like "giant slalom" and "liger", but half the room grew really upset because they wanted to play normal Pictionary.
Fortunately, Nash and Dave stepped in to smooth tensions over and get the singing started with Wild Wild West.
Before coming to Big Sky New Year's, my impression of karaoke was that it's mostly out-of-tune caterwauling. Not here. This group is the highest concentration of musically talented people that I have ever encountered. They even make joke-y songs a delight to listen to.
Take a listen to the video and let me know if I'm wrong (and I didn't even record Erin and Jenny, who have spot-on Disney princess voices).
The downside is that I'd normally feel more comfortable singing, but here it's super intimidating to step up to the mic right after a professional opera singer takes their turn. The upside is that each year I'm filled with the inspiration to learn how to sing well! Maybe this year I'll actually practice.
Just before midnight, we trudge down through the snow to Basecamp, where the ski resort puts on a huge fireworks show. Hundreds of drunk people spill out from the bars and dance clubs and into the below-0 Fahrenheit temperatures for the countdown.
The name of the game is to be as loud as possible. Our group always does at least one fake early countdown. There's a lot of wordless shouting and plastic-horn-tooting.
And of course, the singing continues at full volume throughout the fireworks show. First, the classic Auld Lang Syne (for old time's sake), swaying back-and-forth with arms thrown about each other's shoulders. Then, whatever songs come to mind. We roped in some random strangers with Smashmouth's All Star.
The fireworks show lasted a full twenty minutes with at least three grand "finales". There were all sorts of crazy firework shapes and designs. One of the fireworks misfired, and another fell in a golden shower straight into a patch of forest. Smoke rolled over and around us. I tried not to think about the price tag of such a spectacle and just enjoy it in the moment. Nash fell to his knees in the snow and roared all through the end.
Throughout the celebration, there was also this awareness of how beautiful our surroundings were. A light shone at the top of Lone Peak in the distance. The full moon punched through the clouds above. The whole world was muffled by a heavy blanket of snow, which made the pop of fireworks and our revelry seem all the more defiant.
Why do we make so much noise as one calendar year crosses into the next? Is it to scare away the demons of the last year, or welcome all the good things that will come in the next? Or maybe it's just plain fun. I like picturing this wave of sound spreading around the world, one time zone at a time.
Some of the boys used to spend days before New Year's Eve digging out and a giant igloo in a snowbank. Everyone would cover themselves in furs (this is Montana, hunting and trapping country, after all), crawl through the entrance, and pretend that the icy interior was a Viking mead hall. It was loud and drunk and boisterous and not exactly my scene.
This year, however, there was very little drinking (I think most of us didn't even have a sip of alcohol) and the chat took place in a warm living room. We talked about our favorite memories from 2017 and our hopes for 2018. It was a great time to catch up with some people who we only see a couple times a year and hear the .
And then we got on the topic of the Mandela effect, which are collective false memories. Could the fact that everyone remembers the Berenstein Bears instead of Berenstain indicate a shift into a parallel dimension? Could the reason we all remember Queen's "We Are the Champions" ending in "of the wooooooorld" be due to a blooper in time travel?
By this time it was already nearing 3 am. There would be no viewing of It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, only sleep. I was exhausted from a head-cold/sinus-headache/face-rash, but I still snuck into the fridge to eat a black-eyed pea, which is a Southern United States tradition thought to bring good luck at the new year.
I love how this holiday is so universal, since the entire world has adopted the Gregorian calendar (even if some traditional calendars are also used). It's a wonderful time to celebrate and reflect and be hopeful.
So here's hoping for a wonderful 2018 and beyond for you and your loved ones and for the entire Steemit platform!
I've been slow posting this thanks to said sickness, but you may still have time to share your New Year experience for the My 2017: Welcoming the New Year contest, sponsored by 
- Katie, 
