To get into a frat. To ride a bike more and to fight gravity. To let go of anger and work really hard to be happy being single. Lose weight.

It's that time again — 2012 is here and so are promises of improvement.

A New Year's resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other, so they say. One 2007 study suggests that 88 percent of such pledges are destined for failure. Like babies, resolutions are easy to make, yet hard to deliver. As 17th-century writer François de La Rochefoucauld remarked, we promise according to our hopes and perform according to our fears. And it was comedian Joey Adams who said, "May all your troubles last as long as your New Year's resolutions."

Despite those gloomy odds, one group of close friends has done it consistently for 25 years — not the actual achieving of such commitments, but the ritual around getting together to reconnect, catalog their resolutions and parse over their triumphs and flops at a yearly New Year's Eve Resolution party, sometimes at someone's home, sometimes at a restaurant like Spaghetti Western, where the affair was held in December.

What happens at Chili's. . .

Meet siblings Diane and Chris Barber and friends Colleen Gandin Scamardi and Janet Triem Stanford.

Growing up in the Sagemont neighborhood in 1980s Houston — just outside of the Beltway near the Gulf Freeway, where there's a lion share of themed streets like Sageglen, Sagehaven, Sageville, Sagewood, Sagehaven, Sagemark and so on — the feathered-hair suburban backdrop, not quite a Wisteria Lane, was prime for these kindred spirits to become lifelong pals.

Add Doug Parker to the list, who met the foursome while working at the Gap in 1985.

As close schoolmates since sixth grade, they would often pack inside Chris Barber's car en route to Clear Creek High School. During the Christmas break of 1986, a dinner and a movie gathering concluded at Chili's where a coaster served as record of what was going to begin a decade-and-a-half tradition.

Promises, promises, promises

Scamardi has vowed to learn to juggle, to learn to do the splits and to find her natural hair color, chemically that is, and to have Linda Hamilton arms. She's the happy-go-lucky one of the bunch, with a penchant for Prada shoes. Appropriately so, she's always fashionably late.

Diane Barber is more serious, sometimes, very artsy, goal oriented without being an overachiever and the one with the infectious laugh. She was on a quest to earn an A in trigonometry, get a part on the senior play and meet Rick Springfield.

"Clearly, I had some very high caliber aspirations in those days," she jokes. "Well, I didn't [meet Springfield] until 23 years later when I had enough disposable income to drop a wad of cash on sound check passes for Rick's show.

"Moral of the story: With patience, focus, determination and enough cash, you can do anything you set your mind to."

The former co-executive director of DiverseWorks Artspace, 43-year old Diane Barber is an independent curator currently involved with G Gallery in The Heights.

On the year prior to her 21st birthday, she resolved to get arrested as a testament to her wild twenty-something ways.

"I though I was supposed to have an all blow-out party," she describes. "But instead, my sorority threw me a surprise birthday party with little sparkly hats appropriate for a little kid. And I was supposed to be living on the edge."

Such party was at McDonald's on Post Oak.

"That's about the furthest thing from a 21st birthday blowout party imaginable," she continues. "We all had Happy Meals for dinner."

Chris Barber is the funny one, the life of the party, always animated. He hoped to grow his hair down to his chin, to sport long nails and to add inches to his biceps. Yet through concerns with his physical appearance, he learned about unconditional love and self-acceptance, a tall order for a gay man, also a Texas preacher's son. Today, he works as an events manager and is partnered.

And Parker is the party organizer, self-critical, the good dresser, stylish type with flawless hair who wanted to find love, to not skip class, become a hand model and to see a Broadway show on Broadway.

In his teens and 20s, he wanted to morph his slender build and man up. Now his 40s, weight loss continues to be at the top of his list.

"The five core members of our New Year's Eve Resolution party are some of the people that I feel most comfortable with in the world, Parker says. "We have such a great history together and have shared so many life experiences.

"It's pretty wonderful to be able to sit in a room with people you love, that accept you for you who are, and that know so many of your successes and failures and love you for them all."

Parker is now the chief marketing officer/executive director of a mid-sized Houston business and litigation law practice. He's partnered and keeps two dogs and a cat.

Stanford is the record keeper. It's her responsibility to safeguard a resolutions diary, one that's she's kept up since 1986. She tests her will power by giving up something, like chips and salsa or chocolate, which she does successfully for a year. She's perky, upbeat and very easy to talk to.

Over the years, they've added spouses, significant others and close friends to this rite. Albeit some have come and gone, the original quintet has remained quite faithful to the tradition, even if that required travel.

More than just resolutions

Reconnecting with long lost friends is something that's easy with the advent of social media, though remaining truly close is uncommon.

"The ritual is one of the most grounding experiences I have every year, "Diane Barber says.

"I can say that we knew each other before we knew ourselves. Having this sort of connection is very rare and beautiful, one that makes us think about what's really important, what's really significant no matter what happens in life."

Looking back, these resolutions are about sharing ups and downs, joys and heartbreaks in one very special night they look forward to. Through the years, they have shifted focus from achieving them to following a growth process, to remind them where their respective minds were at the time.

"I have learned is that, while priorities and focus change, it is ultimately an optimistic outlook that causes us to look forward to the opportunity to improve ourselves, in big or small ways," Chris Barber explains. "So, it's not a sense of dissatisfaction that creates the list, so much as a feeling that things will get better."

"It's more about the friendships than the resolutions, "Stanford explains, who now lives in Tyler and works as a pediatric physical therapist. She's married for 19 years and with three children.

The tradition explores the fullness of the life cycle, she says. It's the anchor that keeps them united, keeps the friendships thriving.

"There's always a story," Stanford notes. "With each resolution, you get the synopsis of the year. And as time goes by, conversations have turned more serious as we deal with aging parents, health concerns, children, divorce, acceptance and hardships. We are tracing life through resolutions."

Like Scamardi struggling to potty-train her daughter Bridget, then finding ways to support her through college. Like Parker's traumatic breakup, moving from a jaded and bitter outlook, letting go of anger to nurture a happy, healthy loving relationship. And like Diane Barber spending more time with her grandmother before she passed.

Diane and Chris Barber's parents and Scamardi's mother still live on the street where they met.

"We became friends because we lived close to each other," Stanford continued. "Our friendship has endured because of this tradition, regardless of physical distance."