By Charly SHELTON

The winter holidays can be a big production, like a stage performance. Thanksgiving is the dress rehearsal – the family comes over to the house, there’s a dinner but no presents. It’s easy and a good warm up to the main event. Then Christmas arrives – opening night done up with all the trimmings. After the hustle and bustle is over, after the extended family has gone home and the curtain has come down, it’s time for the wrap party – New Year’s Eve. Gather your friends and go out for a good time to celebrate the end of the big to-do with a night of revelry, food, drink and dancing. In LA, there is no shortage of NYE celebrations and we’ve rounded up some of the best ways to welcome 2018.

Of course there is the old standby of a nice dinner and bar hopping. This is probably the go-to itinerary for most celebrants in LA, as there are so many great restaurants and bars in the city with NYE special menus. My favorite restaurant is Bourbon Steak in Glendale, and it has a unique approach to the NYE dinner. For $95 per person, it offers a four-course prix fixe dinner featuring dishes that are regarded as lucky for the new year from cultures around the world. There are many traditional new year foods, like eggs, which represent the new life of the new year, or buckwheat noodles, which foretell long life in Japan – they’re slurped down without breaking or chewing them – and even a plate of 12 grapes, which the Spanish believe will forecast the year and as celebrants eat the dozen grapes at midnight – one for each month – they are careful to note which grapes are sour and to beware that month.

These traditions are incorporated into dishes like the Caviar Parfait, with osetra caviar (fish eggs), cured salmon, crème fraîche and dill, or the Chilled Soba (buckwheat) Noodles with black truffle dashi and a seven-minute golden egg, or the 12 Grapes at Midnight Salad with lacinato kale, medjool dates, grapes and freekeh with a verjus honey vinaigrette. And being Bourbon Steak, it does prime cuts of beef to perfection. Even beef is seen as lucky because cattle are large and rotund, signifying wealth, and eating beef on the new year is seen as lucky because cattle won’t fly away with your luck.

For those looking for a little less formal setting or just wanting to party, there are clubs and special events like Bootie LA, a roving club that pops up at different locations. On NYE, it will be hosting a laid-back blow-out at Resident DTLA that will have DJs, champagne, confetti and more. Or there’s the NYELA, a huge party spanning three blocks in Downtown LA where the fun goes until the ball drops, with a live countdown to midnight using projections against city hall as the backdrop. This event is totally free, so the price can’t get any better.

Farther south, Disneyland will present a special fireworks show at midnight and have food and drink specials at the restaurants in the park. Knott’s Berry Farm will have extended hours til 1 a.m., a fireworks display at midnight, evening buffet at Spur Chophouse and live music throughout the park. Queen Mary will have a NYE Bash on the ship with Sir Mix-A-Lot performing plus tribute bands, dueling pianos and a special dinner and drinks, all culminating in a 15-minute fireworks show off the stern of the ship. And new this year, for the first time in its history, Universal Studios Hollywood is getting into the swing of things with “EVE-Hollywood’s Biggest New Year’s Party.” The park is open all day but the real fun begins at 9 p.m. with specialty themed party hubs in Universal Plaza, Simpson’s Plaza in Springfield and just outside Jurassic Park – The Ride on the lower lot. There will be DJs, live music, a traditional NYE countdown, fireworks, specialty food and drink, champagne and new 2018 merchandise. It is also the last day to visit The Grinch for Grinchmas in the Park, so there is a little bit of Christmas before the season officially ends.

However you celebrate 2017’s wrap party, be safe and have a good time. The staff of CV Weekly wishes you a prosperous year to come, full of eggs, buckwheat noodles, beef and all the other things that make for a happy new year.

  Charly Shelton