Toast to an alcohol-free 2023
How to celebrate the New Year without champagne in your glass.
New Year's Eve is the best time to uninvite alcohol from your party planning. Attend a sober stand-up event, invite your friends over as an excuse to buy non-al botanical spirits for a mocktail-making party or plan a road trip for the weekend that you’ve been dying to take. The options are endless for your NYE celebrations — here are a few of our recommendations:
Photo courtesy of CLEARHEADED
GOING OUT
Look for non-al events: NYE bashes don’t have to include open bars and champagne toasts. In the Los Angeles area, the City of West Hollywood is co-sponsoring VIBEZ — a sober countdown at Plummer Park’s Festival Hall featuring drag entertainment, tarot reading and dancing. Stage Werx Theatre in San Francisco is hosting a NYE sober stand-up. There are sober events to celebrate the start of the year in practically every city. Consider visiting your city’s event page and look for sober events.
Focus on the food: Inviting everyone out to dinner at a sober-friendly restaurant is a perfect way to reflect on the past year with your friends and talk about the year ahead with the people you love most. If you’re looking for a place to ring in the New Year, these restaurants in L.A. are serving menus perfect for cutting out the alcohol from your NYE celebrations.
Photo courtesy of Death to Stock Photography
THROW YOUR OWN NYE
Host a Dance Dance Party Party: According to Bustle, Dance Dance Party Party “is the brainchild of NYC dance-party denizens Marcy Girt and Glennis McMurray… as an alternative to the ungodly cover charges and detestably boozy milieus of the city’s popular nightclub hotspots.” The only rules to this party are: no boys, no booze and no judgment. Invite over your friends, play your best songs and dance the night away.
Put your mocktail recipes to the test: If you’re the competitive type, invite your friends over to make mocktails together — may the best mocktail win. Provide your guests with replacement spirits, mixers and garnishes. Then, make a game of it and let them know that the best mocktail will win a prize. You’ll have the advantage in the competition since you have access to our Happier Hour recipes, and you can gift products that we already tried and love from our CLEARHEADED Tool Kit.
Photo courtesy of Death Stock Photography
SPLURGE ON A TRIP
Keep it small: If you’re back in the office the day after New Years, taking a spontaneous getaway might not be the most realistic option. But, you can still ring in the New Year at a close-in-proximity destination of your choosing. If you’re near the beach, take a trip to the ocean for a bonfire. Opt for a fun activity like roller-skating. If you’re near the snow, consider taking a ski trip on the last day of 2023. Focusing on a new activity and experience will take off some of the pressure from avoiding the toast at the end of the night.
Go big or go home: All those trips you planned on Google Spreadsheets to the Caribbean, Iceland or roadtrip to a National Park can happen in real life this New Years. Look into a beach house getaway on Airbnb, or a flight to a dream destination. If taking a flight feels too spontaneous, vision board a dream vacation and plan to bring your travel dreams to life in 2023. But, if you do end up hopping on a flight to Europe — here are some of our favorite destinations with sober-friendly venues.