General Meade's Birthday Celebration

Thu., Dec. 31, noon, free, Laurel Hill Cemetery, 3822 Ridge Ave., 215-228-8200, thelaurelhillcemetery.org.

by Julia West

festival/new year's eve

You could spend New Year's Eve running through the same old routine: off-key renditions of "Auld Lang Syne," confetti, horns and lots and lots of booze. Or you could meet up with a couple hundred friends in a graveyard for some bubbly in honor of Gen. George Meade — you know, the guy who whooped Robert E. Lee and his cronies at the Battle of Gettysburg. "It is, after all, Meade's birthday, and Champagne was his favorite drink. We have documents on that," insists a very excited Andy Waskie, a Civil War historian, Temple professor and president of the General Meade Society. B-day party guests will also honor veterans of all wars, listen to poetry and period-appropriate brass music, witness a Victorian parade of soldiers and civilians and enjoy free food — all long before midnight, in case you need to get to something as pedestrian as fireworks.

Thu., Dec. 31, noon, free, Laurel Hill Cemetery, 3822 Ridge Ave., 215-228-8200, thelaurelhillcemetery.org.