New Year's Eve is never as good as you want it to be. 

I think we all know that intellectually, but there is still a part of us that really wants the night to be life changing. 

Like we want it to be the best night of our lives. We want it to symbolise something amazing, because maybe if it is, perhaps the rest of the year will be amazing too. 

When we were kids we spent almost every New Year's Eve in church. 

Which always sucked.

It’s a Sri Lankan Christian tradition that you spend the first moments of the New Year with God and his people in church. Probably something to do with that line in Proverbs about giving God your first fruits. 

I’ll be honest, when all your friends were out partying, hanging out and watching the fireworks and you were sitting in a methodist church pew with your cousins - you really wanted to keep your fruits for yourself. 

We’d always be in either Sydney or Brisbane for New Years usually visiting family but also because those places had New Years Eve services, no where in Newcastle did. 

So most years we’d go down to Sydney to be a part of these services. These usually attracted a fair few people. My whole family would be there - both relatives from my Mum and Dad’s side. 

These services were always so boring as a kid. My cousins would actually be involved in some way and I was jealous. At least they had a reason to be there. 

I’ve always desperately wanted to be where the action is and for me that was the Sydney Harbour Fireworks. 

It was so frustrating the idea of making this huge drive to Sydney on New Years Eve and not going and seeing the fireworks. Instead we were going to some old church in Strathfield and then eat Kiribath and hang out in the most depressing place in the entire world - a church community hall. 

How was I going to have an exciting year of achieving my dreams by starting my year in a dank old church that smelled like mold? How was I going to get a New Years Kiss that didn’t involve a sharp inhale from old aunties and uncles? 

We couldn’t even watch the fireworks on TV because we’d be in the middle of a hymn when the clock struck midnight. No countdown, nothing. Just a bunch of aunties trying to impress each other by singing an octave higher than everyone else. (If you know, you know)

But one year, my Uncle R was running the service. After he had welcomed everyone, he said that at the end of the night we’d be watching the fireworks on TV to celebrate the New Year. I was stoked. This was the closest I’d ever been to watching the fireworks actually on New Years Eve. 

I was so excited, I could have cried. 

That whole service I was truly rejoicing, praising God for how good he was. That he does answer prayers. I felt so close to him, he understood how crappy church on New Years Eve was and he was kind enough to at least make it slightly better. 

I was so excited. 

It got closer to midnight and instead of the usual hymn to finish the service, Uncle R rolled this old TV from the corner of the church into the centre of the room. 

I hopped out of my seat in pure anticipation. This was it, 2008 was my year! Finally this year was going to finally mean something. 

I then proceeded to watch this motherfucker put in a video tape of the Sydney fireworks that had been recorded from the early 1990s. 

Almost a hundred Sri Lankan Australians sat in this old church watching a video tape of old fireworks from 1992, my dreams of an exciting year ahead came to a devastating halt. 

New Year's Eve sucks.