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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#22: Auld Lang Syne

From the Times Square Ball drop to the old Spanish tradition of trying to fit 12 grapes into your mouth at midnight — New Year's Eve comes with a host of different rituals and traditions.

Maybe a new one of yours will be submitting a New Year's-themed story to the Reedsy Prompts contest? 😊 In which case, we don't want to keep you any longer! So...

10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1... write! And have yourself a Happy New Year.

This week's prompts

Write a short story about a person who goes to bed on Valentine's Day and wakes up in 1920.

Holiday – 41 stories

Write a short story about someone with unconventional New Year's traditions.

Holiday – 44 stories

Two strangers meet at a New Year's Eve party. They spend the party together, and then never see each other again.

Winter – 79 stories

Write a short story in which the last line is the countdown to midnight on New Year's Eve.

Winter – 97 stories

Write a short story about someone who does not spend December 31st celebrating New Year's Eve.

Winter – 77 stories

Stories

“Cheers. ” by Boston Chandler

Submitted to Contest #22

The ball drop is a wake up call. It’s December 31st soon to be January 1st. I’m drunk as a skunk and getting into my car. It’s North Georgia, there are a few bars and a small town with local businesses, a diner, and some roads, roads that wind and suddenly catch up to you, and when they do catch up, you have to wonder how long it’s been since you felt something, and if you took a right or a left at the fork. At least, that’s what I always wondered when I realized I was driving. Nowadays I drive and I don’t even think about it. It’s a se...

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“Year of Resurgence” by Brianna Savage

Submitted to Contest #22

To be honest, I never really understood the point of New Year’s Eve. I know that’s probably cynical, maybe a bit cliché, but to me it’s the truth.Who cares about party poppers, or fireworks? What’s the point? For that matter, what about that tradition from my family about stuffing twelve grapes into your mouth at midnight for luck?Why did that matter?In the end, one year just bleeds right into another, as long as you’re fortunate enough to be alive to see it.I suppose that was the draw - a new year means another chance to be a new you.Whatev...

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“Echoes: A New Year's Eve Memoir” by Sarah Poe

Submitted to Contest #22

It sounded like war. It sounded like a passing train. It sounded like popcorn. Yet, in a darkened room, a humming humidifier and a creaky rocker muted the explosions of light bursting in the new year. The woman whose tired legs pumped the chair to and fro could be called both a "young mother" and an "old mother". The oldest of her four boys attended the lowest grade in the public schools making her a mother of small children, a recent parent. However, the silver strands streaking her hair hinted that the approaching decade would kick of...

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“Never a Joyful Day for Many Years to Come” by Maame Aba Asiedu

Submitted to Contest #22

They say the anticipation of death is worse than death itself.‘True,’ I thought as I paced through the gloomy halls of the maternity ward.Now that death had laid its gruesome fingers on Samantha, I realize death is no way better than its anticipation. I prefer to anticipate. I prefer to have Sam laying there once again, with her eyes open, and with me peering in them like I was searching for a paedocypris in the deep Atlantic. I could at least anticipate until we could enter the new year together. But no, the grim reaper would not have it th...

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“The New Year Sadness” by Daniel Brown

Submitted to Contest #22

My wife Rachel was a charismatic, engaging woman with caring eyes, that shined a light in the darkest of times and sparkled like brilliant gems full of vibrant colors piercing the coldness of many people's hearts. She had a way of seeing the world with the admiration of a child finding something new and exciting in every mundane detail. I wondered to myself quite often what she saw in me, knowing I had done nothing to deserve this angel of goodness, she must have pitied me the day she agreed to marry me. There was no way a woman this amazing...

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“It Might As Well Be 1950” by Jackie Abbott

Submitted to Contest #22

Doctor Emma Charles grabbed her bag off the entry hall bench, petted her French Bulldog, King, and tried to get her ringing phone out of her coat pocket. All while she struggled to get the front door open. When she got her phone out of her pocket, an unsigned birthday card from her father floated to the floor. Her mother’s picture stared up at her from her phone. She glared at both representations of her parents. Then she sent her mother’s call to voicemail as she shoved the card under the bench. With a breath, she opened the door, finally, ...

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“The Forsaken Bridge” by Ken Harris

Submitted to Contest #22

High above the vast musky lake, an old unused train track served as a linkage between two towering cliffs. My younger six cousins and I preferred this short cut to the college football stadium rather than taking the long winding back roads from Uncle Jimmy's house. On this New Year's Eve night, I thought a game of football with my cousins would be accommodating to past the time before the historical ball dropped within two hours.But, little Marvin was not enthusiastic about the subject of dropping. He had been holding the rest of us up ...

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“Whisked tides. ” by Temilade Adetona

Submitted to Contest #22

Slowly, the winter sun fell across hazed skies, sombre winds turning, thrumming as hale clouds rose. Arie, still, lay by ingleside as last sun of year dusked, her mind fleeing from wordings of aired docudrama, acrid smells of wall paints and distant liquor, fading quietly into own thoughts. Dulce was a town beautiful only in arie's thoughts, the small, crooked chapel remembered as one of high skill design, the failing orchid fields remembered only as was on days of full bloom, the ofttimes severe sun remembered as good, cheerful and kin...

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“New Years with Julia” by Kathryn Kielman

Submitted to Contest #22

I shrugged my bag over my shoulder as I made my way down the driveway. I checked my phone, 11:00pm. I let out a frustrated sigh as I hurried down dimly lit sidewalk. I wanted to leave thirty minutes ago, but mom was once again trying to convince me to go to her coworkers party. She didn’t understand that I don’t feel comfortable being in crowded places like that, around people like that. She doesn’t understand that I want to be out here, that I need to be. I know she was disappointed I didn’t go and even a little nervous. Any caring mother w...

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“Alone within emotionally illusory dynamic fluid wilderness new years eve 2019” by Matthew Harris

Submitted to Contest #22

A reverie along memory lane bubbles forth, when this grr wreck oh row man (figuratively perched high atop totem pole - paddles - secured within oarlocks), while he serenely quizzically, lackadaisically, and harmoniously drifted merrily thru LX orbitz around the sun. Obliviousness wafted with zealous laissez faire devil may care attitude. Pointlessness against cavil leer mindset (regarding roaming as sea sunned bonafide Nova Scotian fish she ate while off Newfoundland) blissfully carried yours truly along slipstream of timelessness since his ...

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“5 Stars” by Jake Creghton

Submitted to Contest #22

That familiar ping filled the cramped hallway, it was the only immediate sound against the music and laughs muddled in with the muted tones of chatter from the partygoers in the apartment above. “The Uber is here” said Claire to her two co-conspirators. They were already making their way down the damp carpet towards the shaking door aware that the message could only have been for their ride. “It says he has a… disability,” she said, unsure of what to make of that information. “What like he’s ‘tarded or something,” asked Max, he had bee...

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“To Tradition” by Hailey Schap

Submitted to Contest #22

New year. New start. New you. At least that is how most people see it. A time of rebirth and of beginnings. A time for the future. And yet, so many of the most infamous New Years celebrations are based on traditions and the past. From the countdown in times square to that lucky new years kiss, it is all about the past and it is all about repetition. But this continues because, as humans, what do we have but the past and tradition to define our lives? Without tradition we are nothing. We are simply masses of atoms with no purpose and...

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“The Year is 202 b.G.” by Elena A

Submitted to Contest #22

Looking in the mirror of her cramped bathroom, Léonie forced a smile at her reflection. She regarded her dark, curly hair and tanned-brown face, assessed her outfit chosen for the evening. A dark midnight blue dress, hanging loosely around her curves and hiding them neatly beneath the folds. She wore matching dark blue heels, and nylon stockings, as it was freezing cold outside. The month was December, the year was 2019, and it was rapidly coming to a close. Today was the last day of the year, and everyone in Brussels—the city that was Léoni...

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“STANDING ON TRADITION” by David D'EttoreUser

Submitted to Contest #22

STANDING ON TRADITION “Why are you standing on your head?” I tried to look up and focus on the person asking the question. He was small man with a thin mustache that appeared to be painted above his lip. He had a squeaky voice, the kind that reminds one of the little whiners back in grade school who used to wipe their noses with their sleeves and then touch everything with...

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“Adventures in the New” by Emilie Conroy

Submitted to Contest #22

A funny thing happened at my college alumni New Year's Eve festivities. With great Pagan panache, I appeared in a purple gown cut along the lines of a classical Greek robe. I wore what I call my Pagan bling, a pentagram sprinkled with amethyst chips. After all, I had no reason to disguise what I was under a cloak of the mundane. These were people who had known me back when I was a caterpillar. Now I was a caterpillar with wings. You might call such a creature a butterfly, I don’t know. Anyway, I got a glass of Generic Pun...

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$50

Prize money

338

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jan 03, 2020 EST

Won by Emily Hemmings 🏆

Title: Pagliacci on the Q Train

Submissions must be between 1,000 - 3,000 words and will be approved and published on Reedsy Prompts within 7 days of the contest closing.

Read the full terms & conditions or check out the FAQ if you have any questions!

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