New Year's Eve Compendium: Toasts, Tips, Trivia and Tidbits for Bringing in the New Year

What are you going to be doing on the world's greatest party night? Playing gin rummy with Mother?  Or hobnobbing at a swingin' soiree where the sparkling wine flows like champagne?
        
Whether you love big bashes or prefer silk pajamas and mood music, Todd Lyon shows you how to make the most of New Year's Eve.  With humor and only the slenderest thread of dignity, she offers up a passel of foolproof theme parties, shares recipes for potables like the Soul Kiss and Fuzzy Party Punch, circulates an assortment of clever hors d'oeuvres, and uncorks a complete guide to buying, pouring, and serving bubbly.
        
For guests and hosts alike, there's New Year's Eve trivia (did you know that it's possible to shoot a champagne cork 177 feet?) and a time line of memorable moments in New Year's Eve history (in 1899, extra police were posted on the streets of San Francisco to keep strangers from making out), as well as selected toasts, great party games, predictions for the year 2000, and time-honored cures for hangovers--even millennium-sized ones.
        
New Year's Eve should be anything but dull. Forget auld acquaintances--here's how to make your party sparkle.

Todd Lyon has written numerous books about creative living, including The Domain Book of Intuitive Design (Clarkson Potter, 1998), Chic Simple:  Cooking  (Knopf, 1996), and Chic Simple: Paint (Knopf, 1994). She is the editor-in-chief of CT Life, an award-winning monthly publication, and writes about culture, style, and food for The New Haven Advocate.  Her essays and articles--some published under the pseudonym, Mimi Coucher--have appeared in Cosmopolitan, Biography, Saveur, and Bust.  She lives in New Haven in a small apartment with a large boyfriend and a medium dog.