Auld Lang Syne.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne!

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
We'll take a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.  

- Robert Burns

I understand why New Year’s Eve is about staying up late, drinking alcohol and kissing. Being a sweeper is a lot of pressure and in holiday time, six days is like six minutes. 

Something very different is needed for a successful climax in the final round of the holiday season.

Thanksgiving kicks it off, a food, family and festivity inspired frenzy that culminates a month later when bank accounts are weak, family dynamics are both warm and wired, and exhaustion guarantees that no creatures will be stirring. By the time the man in red drops down the chimney and every ham, goose and turkey has been cooked, everyone needs a long winter’s nap.

Which is why I haven’t made it to many ball drops. But I have remembered them all.

As a child we watched the ball drop thousands of miles away, racing into the dead of an Arctic night with sparklers as rifles rang as the ghostly white Aurora Borealis danced above. There was the high school friend’s unsanctioned party. There was the New Year’s Eve that I spent on a red eye from Phoenix to Toronto after a Def Leppard concert with my younger brother and the 24-hours in Buffalo at the tail end of college.

There was the New Year’s Eve when we ordered in sushi, watched “Dude, Where’s My Car?” and drank wine with abandon only to throw in the towel at 15 to midnight. There was the time we listened to the radio in the dark as Journey squeezed a little more life out of their career. There were the years he worked, telling me over the phone that he wished he was at home kissing me instead of ducking for cover as revelers fired into the air, letting bullets fall where they may. And then there was the one I don’t remember, the angry one that followed, and the lonely one after that.

365 days ago, I sat right here watching wishes of all the best float across the screen. And the poem that Robert Burns wrote so long ago stung.

Like everyone else, I made a vow. To work less and live more. To make our house a home again. To slow down and enjoy the moments in my children’s lives that will happen only once. To write more. To never forget who and what came before and to look ahead to who and what may lie ahead.

And when the ball drops tonight and we are surrounded by the merriment of friends as Auld Lang Syne floats through the air, I’ll vow to do it all over again.

Roasted by Reality.

A splash of rum. An ample roast.

It sounded divine. Our first post-nuptials holiday in a house we dreamed or and painstakingly designed, and we were determined to do things our way. Our dining table was officially a turkey-free table, without a trace of jellied cranberry to be found.

And that was the last time I cooked Thanksgiving dinner.

Not because I can’t cook a roast, and not because my turkeys don’t melt off the bone. Because Thanksgiving will always be the day when I gave thanks that eyebrows and eyelashes grow back and that the smell of charred hair does indeed fade along with the rosy evidence across cheekbones and the bridge of one’s nose.

But 10 years later I am being forced to revisit the ghosts of Thanksgiving past, because my son is determined to have a feast worthy of the pilgrims and their Native American guests. A bounty of corn. Fresh-baked bread. Mouthwatering mashed potatoes. Gravy worth wallowing in. Pumpkin pie. Stuffing. And a turkey. That must be cooked in an oven.

By me.

Thanksgiving has never been our holiday of choice, and for a decade it was one of the most important weekends of my career. Looking back on resolutions made 11 months earlier and a vow to change habits that no longer fit, comes the promise of new ones and contentment in the simple fact that it is nearly noon and I am still in my pajamas.

But if I know anything, it is this. Painful memories aren’t forgotten – they simply sting less with time. Staring at the pimply flesh of the bird I am about to violate with spoonfuls of stuffing my children will taste and promptly disavow, I also know this.

He’s already laughing. Wherever he is.

Screw the Turkey. And the Stuffing.

My childhood didn’t include extended family descending like biblical locusts for a day of gluttony, and I’ve never taken part in a Turkey Bowl. The thought of cranberry jelly oozing through my teeth sends a shiver up my spine, and I could outlast Ghandi if bean casserole was the only thing left on earth to eat. For me, Thanksgiving was just one of those no-school-no-work-lots-of-food days.

And then I met my husband.

Who also viewed Thanksgiving as one of those no-school-no-work-lots-of-food-extra-hours-on-my-bicycle days. The first couple of years, no turkey came within a mile of our kitchen. We slept in late, went to bed early and watched football while we snacked on snack-y things and drank out of mason jars.

As soon as the vows were spoken our respective families began circling and in a pre-emptive strike before our offspring became the spoils of war, we laid out our holiday battle strategy. Canadian Thanksgiving for one. American Thankgsiving for the other. Our house for Christmas.

For 10 years we stood our ground, even as the different camps subtly campaigned for changes. Stuffing our toddling son and barely born daughter into car seats, we suffered through tantrums and screaming and pleasantries. We held our tempers as my figure received its annual evaluation, grit our teeth as cousins bullied cousins, and suffered the digestive insults of a mountain of fat and butter. And we fell into bed giving thanks that Thanksgiving was over.

And then my husband died.

Exactly one month later I made the trek to his family’s house. Alone save two screaming children, I forced turkey into a digestive track that recoiled against sustenance at a table where he loomed unspoken. A year later, resigned to the fact that everything had changed but refusing to accept that it had, the air was uncomfortable as serving spoons clinked and unspoken questions went unanswered. Another year passed and as turkeys around the nation ran for cover, passive acceptance became fiery anger as another Thanksgiving loomed on the horizon. He was gone but nothing had changed.

And with one scoop of buttery mashed potatoes, everything did.

This year there will be snack-y things and Turkey Trots, new places and snow falling. The air will be filled with laughter, not silence. We’ll throw footballs and ride bikes, and we’ll drink hot chocolate as we deck the halls. We’ll remember stories of Thanksgivings past, and we’ll feast on the things we like. 

Unlike last year, when my relationship status was served up for discussion alongside squishy cranberry jelly. Neither of which should be on the menu.

Spooks. Spectres. And Steve.

Our war is in its sixth year. 

To be honest, he doesn’t even know about our little feud, which is less war and more burning desire on my part that a tornado will set down on his yard and remove every strip of yellow caution tape, enormous furry spider, animated headless object and bubbling cauldron. 

It’s not that I want to win the award for best Halloween décor. Frankly, I really don’t want to spend hours draping cotton cobwebs over shrubbery and between tree branches. Or assemble miles of extension cords just so pumpkins will grin from the doorstep in the night. Only to take it down three weeks later.

But I live in one of those neighborhoods. You know. The ones filled with families. Families with Dads that like to decorate. Or that have wives who make them do it. And there’s always one house in that trumps the rest. At Halloween, it’s Steve’s house.

(I’m 98% sure Steve is his name because my husband once said it was. But because alliteration sounds fun, we’re going with Steve. Even if there is a 2% chance his name might be something else. Like Joe. Or Zeke.)

Steve is the reason that my kids grade our house each year on a sliding scale that goes from putrid to petrifying. He doesn’t just deck the spooky halls spectacularly. He actually becomes part of the grim landscape, jumping out to add the final touch of terror while the neighborhood kids shriek in fear. So when Steve starts wrapping his trees in caution tape, I don’t hear maniacal screams from his little yard of horrors. I hear …

“Why can’t you decorate our house better? And make it more … you know … Halloween-ish.”

Which is why I am wrestling with the landscape. A heavy ladder. Two new gargoyles. A sparkly web. Another spider. A ladder. An assortment of pumpkins. Extension cords. Choking down the insect that just rocketed past my uvula, I step back and evaluate.

He can have October. But when December rolls around? It’s on. Like Donkey Kong.

October.

The sound of children playing floats through the open windows after dinner. Garbage cans roll to the curb in the morning dew and the smell of nutmeg fills the house. 

October is that perfect moment between summer’s last gasps and winter’s chilly grasp, when nights are cozy in their crispness and hands are held tighter. Horizons catch fire as leaves fade to gold and auburn and orange and autumn wreaths welcome you home. The boys of fall light up Friday nights while the girls dream of being homecoming queen.  Fires begin to crackle in the fireplace and pumpkins grin fiendishly in windows.

I hate October.

Now before you get your jack-o-lantern-maple-syrup-beer-swigging-fall-color-lovin’-and-I-was-born-in-October panties in a twist, hear me out. I used to love October. Every cozy-sweater-first-snow-black-cat-and-mug-of-cider minute of it.

But now I am answering questions about whether or not Daddy resembles the decaying mass erupting from the dirt in your yard against a display of crumbling faux grave markers.

I fend off their excitement as they campaign to create a display of grave markers for the man we have lost, all the while imagining what the letter from the homeowners association would say if I had given in to their demands for a permanent tombstone in the front yard. When the doorbell rings and it’s our turn to pass the neighborhood “boo” I think only of the doorbell in the night to sign official paperwork. Walking to the mailbox, I wonder how many of them ask about the ones left behind in the house on the corner. I dread the emails and phone calls checking in, as much as I need them to reassure me that he has not been forgotten.

But none of that matters because right now it isn’t about skulls in the yard. It’s about squeezing into that red-lycra-pitchfork-tail-and-patent-heels costume.   

Because if I’m going to roast in the pits of hell, I need to be dressed appropriately.