Markdown millennium

How to party like it's $19.99

by Robert David Sullivan

I had big plans for this New Year's Eve. The idea was for a bunch of friends to spend the weekend at a certain resort town not far from here, famed for its sand dunes and sequined dresses. Full of naiveté, we started looking at accommodations a few months ago and discovered that price-gouging has replaced whale-watching as the town's most popular pastime. We narrowed our choices to a few guesthouses that word of mouth had deemed "not so bad if you don't intend to spend much time there" (i.e., you'll want to find a nearby gas station where you can brush your teeth). Taking into account the standard four-night minimum stay, we'd be able to afford one of these places if we slept three to a bed and had a New Year's Eve feast of lobster rolls from McDonald's and rum-flavored Life Savers. Not ready to sink so low, we took a chance and put down a deposit at a place we had never heard of. It looked okay on its Web site. (There's a phrase you'll be hearing a lot more in the next century.) Only later did we meet someone who had actually stayed there, and who diplomatically suggested that the place might not be so bad on New Year's Eve: there's a good chance that all the cockroaches will succumb to hypothermia long before Christmas.

With this information, we threw in the towel and decided not to make this New Year's Eve a celebration to end all celebrations. I don't want to disparage anyone's religious beliefs, but the world is not coming to an end in three weeks, and I'm not going to liquidate my bank account before all the Christmas-season overstock goes on sale. My turn-of-the-century partying is going to stay within my budget.

I suspect that a lot of people have reached the same conclusion. According to a CNN poll released a few weeks ago, 75 percent of Americans say they'll be at home on New Year's Eve, and 56 percent say they'll be watching TV as the ball drops in Times Square. (Only 19 percent say they'll be "armed" for Y2K, and 20 percent say they'll be having sex at the stroke of midnight.) Bostonians seem more likely to get off their couches, but this is not a city that one associates with extravagance. There won't be a New Year's Eve blowout at the FleetCenter, since its owners wisely decided that Bostonians would not bite at $900 tickets to see Ricky Martin shake his cojones. And instead of a single Times Square-type celebration at midnight, we'll have three fireworks displays staggered throughout the evening, giving most people time to scurry home and watch Dick Clark. Trust me: despite all the Y2K hype, you won't be alone if you decide to skip the overpriced restaurants and crowded parties in favor of a no-frills evening.

Throw your own party, and don't despair if the guest list is short. The fewer the people, the more flattering the invitation: you're creating an exclusive circle of friends to watch the changing of the century. The entertainment is pretty much built into the evening, as people of all ages find ways to shrink this cosmic event into personal terms. ("When I was in high school, I never would have believed that we'd be around to witness a sequel to Toy Story.") To ensure an upbeat evening, however, take care that you invite enough optimists to outnumber the people who have spent the past year moaning about the imminent collapse of Western civilization. In other words, don't let in too many Republicans.

If you must have a theme, several inexpensive ideas come to mind. You could try to re-create 1900 by hiding all your TVs, computers, cell phones, and microwave ovens. Or you could go the opposite route and serve only foods invented in the 20th century -- Spam, Cool Whip, Pop Tarts, and soyburgers, among other trademarked delights. Take advantage of the ultimate 1990s invention, the Internet, and download images of 20th-century celebrities to decorate your house (for a Hall of Fame or a Wall of Shame, depending on your preference) or to create an informal trivia game.

Make your guests come up with the entertainment by asking them to bring their favorite pieces of music from the 20th century. (Rhapsody in Blue meets "Gangsta's Paradise"!) If you've got a lot of time and not too many invitees, they can bring their favorite movies, perhaps cued up to their favorite scenes. The juxtaposition of the Odessa Steps sequence from Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (1925) with the farting scene from Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles (1974) is bound to prompt a lively discussion. Those with less patience for nostalgia could request that people bring their candidates for 21st-century entertainment crazes. Maybe Tibetan disco will finally catch on, and people will remember that they first heard it at your party.

The symbolic destruction of 20th-century abominations -- such as black-velvet paintings, The Brady Bunch, and the oeuvre of Michael Bolton -- can be another satisfying way to spend the evening. Everyone has a boxful of books that belong in a fireplace, and some CDs that sound best when crunched underfoot. You could waste an entire day selling all of it for $14 at a yard sale, or you could exorcise all the pop-culture demons of the 20th century in one swoop.

There's nothing shameful about a potluck dinner on New Year's Eve. A lot of people get bottles of wine, blocks of cheese, and other edibles for Christmas, and they might as well bring them to your house. In fact, they might as well bring all their extra or unwanted gifts to give away. It would prove my theory that every mother somehow knows exactly what to buy for her children's friends. (Person who has never met Mom: "Hey, these retro clothes are so cool!" Embarrassed son: "Yeah, whatever, just take them.")

Of course, you may prefer to take in the city on the big night. Perfectly understandable. It's a thrill to be in a crowd of noisy people who are not cheering on a soccer team or trying to overthrow a government -- who are, instead, just happy to be alive at a key point in history (and maybe relieved that we made it through this century without blowing ourselves up). The problem is that you don't want to spend $50 to get into a party at a restaurant (food and drink not included), and it being Boston in December, you don't want to spend the whole night outside. Well, you could ring in the new millennium with a cross section of humanity in the nearest subway station, or with the poor guys working at Store 24. Another option is to get a group together and stake out a booth at your favorite dive bar, arriving a good eight hours before midnight. As long as you keep buying drinks and appetizers, you can guard the spot in shifts: a couple of people go out to look at the ice sculptures and other First Night attractions, and when they come back to get warm, another couple hit the streets. Shortly before midnight, everybody returns to get another round of drinks and to squeeze into the booth. When the clock strikes midnight, you can experience the sublime pleasure of being in a bar jammed with people who look more attractive and fascinating than you could ever hope to be -- and who look at you with envy because you're sitting down.

I've considered all these ideas, but I finally hit on the perfect way to save some money and not experience a big letdown on the last night of the century. I'm going to break free of the tyranny of the calendar and celebrate New Year's Eve a night early. My friends and I will walk around and look at the ice sculptures being carved, we'll admire the Christmas lights outside the homes of people frantically trying to prepare for the next night, and we'll splurge on a nice dinner at a restaurant without a $200 prix fixe menu.

On the actual New Year's Eve, we can take in a movie and continue to digest the great meal from the night before. Having already ended 1999 on a high note, we can spend the evening looking ahead. Maybe we'll plan a vacation for the spring, when the hotels are back to their normal expensive rates. We may take the money we've saved by staying home and instead order cool stuff from the Internet (who else will be shopping online at that hour?) so that we'll find some presents on our doorsteps during the cold, dark days of January.

There will be a toast at midnight, of course, and I'm buying the good stuff. Economizing is okay when it comes to dinner, but I'm too superstitious to start the next millennium belching bad champagne.