It was exactly 11:20pm last New Years Eve, that you made a promise to yourself -- A final resolution to throw into your 2010 bucket of things to "get right" in the coming year. Right next to losing 15 pounds and limiting yourself to only nine Law & Order episodes per week, you made that final pledge: next New Years Eve do what I want to do.

Easier said than done, I know, but consider this last Funny Guy column of 2010 your final warning to cancel those horrendous New Year's Eve plans this upcoming Friday, December 31st. You really can't stand country music, so why did you give your girlfriend your credit card and agree to go see Zac Brown Band in Philips Arena, Atlanta? Stand-up comedy makes you want to kill yourself, yet you let your cousin convince you to bag plans with your college friends and fly out to see friggin' Carrot Top at The Luxor Hotel in Vegas??

Don't you get it, Dear Reader; this is the last leg of The Great Fall through Winter Holiday Obstacle course. Make sure you are doing what you want and on your own terms. Let's look back over the last eight weeks, shall we? Halloween you drove 7 hours round trip to see your nephew, albeit quite cute dressed as a dolphin, for all of 25 minutes before he threw a tantrum and had to be put to bed. Thanksgiving, you dropped $350 on a delicious, but thank-you-less Turkey dinner, and were scrubbing cemented stuffing off your pots and pans way into December. Hanukah rolled around next, and what started as a well-meaning gesture to your new Jewish co-worker turned into an 11-hour menorah lighting ceremony and Jewish folk song marathon.

The fighting, traveling, fun but frustrating juggernaut that is Christmas, is only today slowly draining out from your spent body; and low and behold, the New Years Eve typhoon of phone calls, texts and Facebook madness has already begun.

Before you check in with your boyfriend or girlfriends, husband or wife, before you check out what the girls are doing or what the boys have in store, think about what you need? Snuggling on the couch with your boo, drinking cheap wine and watching Mean Girls? Maybe. A 10 hour night in 9 inch, leopard print stilettos, a latex mini skirt and a FourLoco IV drip keeping you fist pumping with your besties on the dance floor? Maybe.

A candlelit dinner at Chez Fancy with your new boyfriend? Maybe. Or maybe quietly rolling by your parent's crib, and surprising them with a throw back night of family New Year's Eve'ing. I'm talking old school style, with a game of charades, a bag of stale Twizllers and sweet old Dick Clark and company counting you down into the New Year. Maybe...maybe not.

Whatever step you take make sure you'll be starting 2011 in your shoes. We can't be there for everyone, and sometimes it's best to throw the onslaught of plans and expectations to the wind and just listen to your own voice. In other words, when the clock strikes midnight, best not find yourself wearing a glittered wig and disco heels at Mr. Smalls theater in Pennsylvania for the Wu Tang Clan with Shindiggaz, Cadillac Dame and the Justuce Street Poet when you yearn for your fuzzy dinosaur slippers and grandma's comfy couch.

After all, before you can take care of everyone, you must take care of yourself first. That's something, I think, all parties can agree on.