Today I am in a reflective mood as another year draws to an end and at the stroke of midnight a new year welcomed. You may be celebrating tonight surrounded by friends and family, or like me, feel the need for rest and rejuvenation, and therefore spending it alone. Regardless, you will be wishing the world Buon Anno, or Happy New Year as soon as the clock reads 12:00.

Due to many years working in hospitality during the holiday season, major celebratory events such as new years eve are still met with an overall lack of excitement. For waitstaff, bar staff, chefs and the like, these nights are spent with sore feet, intoxicated loud patrons and counting down the clock for when you can go home to bed. There is nothing exciting to me now about going outside of my house on this night to stand in lines and crowded venues.

This year I was meant to go to my best friends place on the Sunshine Coast but the end of the year tiredness has finally hit me now that I’ve finally stopped to rest so I’ve decided to stay home. The past few days I’ve felt quite emotional and unsteady, maybe Mercury is in retrograde again, so tonight I’m planning on leaning in to. A solo new years eve doesn’t need to be a sad occasion and as someone who enjoys their own company I am looking forward to it. This year I started listening to motivational podcasts, meditating and journaling and they have been a really enjoyable practice. Hence, tonight I’ll be journaling my reflections on the past twelve months and listening to a guided meditation to ready my mind for a year of new possibilities. A movie favourite is also on the cards and I’m preparing a traditional northern Italian new years eve menu - something I have never done before.

On the menu for tonight is:

Primo piatto - Tortellini in brodo (broth)

Secondo - Lenticchie e cotechino (lentils and pork sausage)

Dolce - Panettone, and berries and cream (berries and cream is not traditional)

I’ve cheated a fair bit with the above because the majority of the dishes are already prepared so I just have to cook the components and then enjoy the eating. I am lacking in enthusiasm to make both the tortellini and brodo from scratch, but I do have to cook the beautiful Italian sausages I got from the butcher and prepare the lentils by sautéing them with soffritto, bay leaves and some tomato paste. The lentils, and by cutting the pork sausages once cooked into round pieces, are believed to resemble coins and therefore are meant to bring money and good luck for the coming year. Another tradition is to wear red underwear to bring luck in love but I neither own that colour nor want this for myself for next year so let's forget about that one. Money and luck are welcomed in abundance for 2023 so if it takes eating lentils and pork sausage to get them then I shall do it!

What ever you may be doing to see in 2023 I hope you are safe, enjoy celebrating or not celebrating it, and also I hope you don’t put too much pressure on yourself by expecting it to be anything other than what it is, just another evening. I’ll be welcoming 2023 with the sunrise, something I’ve also never done on January 1, and easing myself in to the new year with kindness and gratitude. Buon anno a tutti!