In 1980 I swallowed the CW and expected a long night. We invited both liberal and conservative friends over for a watch party. By the time I got home with the snacks to get started it was all over. The party didn’t last long, but boy did I have a good time!
I wasn't old enough to vote yet in 1980 but I sure was aware of the election. At church camp that summer the counselor had solemnly warned us that if Reagan was elected we would not live to graduate high school. The Sunday before, the pastor had openly endorsed Carter after telling us that Reagan could "postpone the Second Coming indefinitely" by defeating "Gog and Magog" (which in that church were believed to be the USSR and China) before they could invade Israel. Of course, the press was walloping us every day with Reagan=bad, Carter=good rhetoric. But my dad and I were rooting for Reagan. I recall that I was building a model of the U.S.S. Missouri when the newsers unexpectedly called it for Reagan. I don't think it was even 8:00 yet.
The only sad person in the house was my granddad, an old union man who thought every Democrat was JFK (he'd have dropped dead if he'd lived to see Zero; he was an unrepentant segregationist). But he celebrated with us anyway. Those were good times!