New Year’s Eve
New Year’s Eve is the holiday that needs an “anti” party. Girls started doing anti-Valentine’s in protest of the outlandish expectations of that day, but for my money, NYE is the worst of the high-pressure, forced-fun offenders. Plus, champagne is the devil’s work and even the expensive stuff makes me weepy and bloated.
This imaginary event is not catered, valeted, or overly planned. Come over in sweats and slippers. If you don’t have any, I can provide them, not because I bought them in preparation, but because I love sweats and slippers and I happen to own enough to outfit a small, very comfortable army. No makeup, no champagne, no “You’re leaving already?” good-bye guilt, and absolutely NO glitter. There will be Jenga, jigsaw puzzles, wine, whatever I have in my fridge (condiments and an empty Brita), maybe a stand-up special on Netflix, and hopefully some decent gossip about whoever didn’t make it. I don’t know what we’ll do at midnight, because there will be no countdown. And if you’re cool with me falling asleep mid-party, you can stay as long as you want.
Thanksgiving
I adore an “Orphans’ Thanksgiving.” I love my family, but Thanksgiving with friends feels awesome because I grew up watching TV shows about people who seemed to have no connections outside of their friend group, office, or community college.
The magic comes from the “playing house” quality that makes you feel more grown-up and more childlike simultaneously.
In my dream version the menu is as follows:
Dinner
Individual Cranberry Baked Brie Puff Pastries
Brussels Sprouts with Caramelized Onions and Crispy Bacon
Fried Mac-and-Cheese Balls with Truffle Oil
Buttery Jalape?o Cornbread
Lobster Mashed Potatoes
Garlic-and-Herb-Stuffed Mushrooms
Roasted Butternut Squash with Maple-Glazed Pecans
Prosciutto-Wrapped Asparagus Spears
Cranberry Sauce Out of the Can
Turkey, I Guess
Desserts
Pumpkin Crème Br?lée
Pumpkin Cake with Honey Cream Cheese Frosting
Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars
Pumpkin Whoopie Pies
Pumpkin Swiss Roll
Pumpkin Pie
I will defend pumpkin until the day I die. It’s delicious. It’s healthy. I don’t understand the backlash. How did pumpkin become this embarrassing thing to love but bacon is still the cool flavor to add to everything? I don’t have anything against bacon; just don’t come after pumpkin like it’s a crime to love an American staple.
Activities will include pretending to help in the kitchen, watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and saying you’re so full you’re going to throw up, then waiting ten minutes and getting more pie.
Once the sun has been down for a couple hours the Christmas season is technically upon us and it’s time for the first Harry Potter marathon of the year, starting with film number three (because, obviously) and ending with film five, when the filthy casuals are allowed to go home. The hard-cores can sleep at my place and in the morning we will finish films six, seven, and seven-but-where-stuff-happens. Pumpkin pie for breakfast.
batten down the hatches
My friend Whitney is obsessed with the ocean. She decorates her Christmas tree with seashells and starfish and says things like, “Logically I know they’re not, but I just feel like mermaids are real.” Whitney invites me sailing shortly after I turn twenty-one. She and her family make an annual trip to Catalina, a truly tiny island off the coast of California, for an event called Buccaneer Days.
I’ve heard Whitney talk about this event before—it will be Alex’s second time going—but I still don’t understand what it is. Is it a costume contest? Is it a boat race? “It’s an excuse for people to dress up and drink all day,” she says.
Every year for a three-day weekend, Catalina plays host to about five hundred people (in about one hundred boats) who dress in elaborate pirate costumes, fly skull-and-crossbones flags, and refer to every beverage they consume as “grog.”